The Throne speech dominated most the week in the Ontario Legislature, the changes to health care taking up a substantial part of the NDP’s response, tax, debt and deficit dominating the Tory reply.
PC Leader Tim Hudak criticized the McGuinty government for not living up to their promises in the 2007 Throne Speech, including the promise to hire more nurses and establish more long-term care beds.
“Just ask the patients, seniors and families in places like Ottawa, London, Fort Erie or Port Colborne,” said Hudak, “who have seen services like ERs close down and nurses being laid off.”
“This throne speech includes a lot of lofty talk about reforming Ontario’s health care system,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, “but no language that offers any peace of mind for families and communities across Ontario-families that received a phone call during these past few weeks to tell them that the surgery they’ve been waiting for had been deferred or cancelled because the hospital was out of money.”
Horwath suggested that the speech hinted at picking winners and losers, pitting people and communities against each other for the right to provide care.
“We’re tying funding procedures-trying to put people’s health problems in a box and solve them all separately,” she said.
Horwath said the road the McGuinty government is on will have a devastating impact on smaller and rural hospitals.
Southern Ontario Tory MPP Toby Barrett echoed Horwath’s concerns: “In rural Ontario, we have a gnawing concern about which end of the stick we’re going to be at with respect to this one.”
“The Ontario Health Coalition is quoted as indicating that expanding pay for performance to small hospitals would lead to further disparities between the level of care available in rural and urban Ontario,” said Barrett.
In question period, the Tories focused on U.S. brokered contracts the Ontario set up with American-based hospitals to provide care to Ontarians. Health Minister Matthews said the contracts were for very complex cases arranged by the Canadian Medical Network. Matthews said CMN looked after about 35 cases per year. Durham-area Tory MPP John O’Toole pointed to a Metroland newspaper report that said the McGuinty government had signed health care contracts with 40 American hospitals and clinics, making them “preferred providers.”
Matthews said the biggest group of patients Ontario was exporting was for bariatric surgery. “We are repatriating that program right now,” she told the legislature. “This year, over 1,000 people who would have gone out of country for bariatric surgery received that program here in Ontario. Next year, that program will expand even further.”
The Premier refused to apologize for sending patients out of country for treatment. “I think it’s about assuring ourselves that, from time to time when we lack that subspecialty expertise here in Ontario, we avail ourselves of that for Ontarians where that might be found south of the border.”
Both the NDP and the PC’s criticized the government’s management of alternatives to hospital care.
Former PC Health Critic Elizabeth Witmer was critical about wait lists for long term care beds expanding. “We’re now in the third year of the four-year aging-at-home strategy,” she said. “The wait-list for long-term-care beds is increasing, and there is no community care support. Today, there are 26,000 people waiting for a long-term-care bed. Compare that to 12,000 in 2005.”
NDP Health Critic France Gelinas challenged the government to end competitive bidding and fix the home care system. “Right now, the Sudbury Regional Hospital has 89 beds occupied by alternate-level-of-care-ALC-patients,” she said. “Meanwhile, six patients are stuck in the emergency department because they can’t find a bed for them. Many of the people who are now ALC patients could have been safely looked after at home if we had a robust home care system.”
The lack of resources by CCACs to carry out the job was echoed by PC MPP Sylvia Jones: “I’ve heard from a personal support worker in my riding who was told that the local community care access centre ran out of money in February and has not accepted any new clients, and will not accept any new clients until the new fiscal begins. Why are these workers being told that taking on new clients who need care simply isn’t in the budget?”
Matthews attacked the Tory record in long term care while avoiding any issues related to competitive bidding in home care. She reiterated the funding record for CCACs.
The NDP’s Peter Kormos made a statement in the house about incontinent products, arguing that many seniors on fixed incomes could not afford up to $3,000 a year for these products.
“If you lived down in Niagara, you’d know Jack O’Neil of Port Colborne.” said Kormos. “He has been writing to the Minister of Health since 2004 asking for funding to assist seniors with incontinence products. There is still no funding through OHIP, assistive devices or even Trillium, and there was no mention of it in the throne speech.”
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