In Brief: 56 per cent fewer hospital beds in Ontario / No sitting in UK hospitals / More

There are significantly fewer hospital beds per capita in Ontario than there were two decades ago. Since 1990, the number of Ontario hospital beds per capita has dropped by 56 per cent. That number could rise again if this week’s provincial budget does not include sufficient cash for hospitals. … Margaret Mottershead, chief executive of the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres, says the community sector has not been adequately funded to manager higher demand coming from divested patients from the hospitals. Mottershead told the Toronto Star that the CCACs have introduced many programs in the last few years to ease pressure on hospitals, but have not been fully funded for them. She said some CCACs are reducing hours of support. … The Sault Area Hospital is proposing to keep all of its mental health beds. Seven beds were to be closed April 1st, but the hospital maintains it needs all 30 beds. SAH’s mental health facility is regularly at 95 per cent capacity. “While there have been additional revenues and program put in place in the community, the need is still there,” SAH spokesperson Mario Paluzzi told the Sault Star. The North East Local Health Integration Network will make a final decision on the hospital’s proposal. … Toronto Star columnist Bob Hepburn questions why Federal opposition leader Michael Ignatieff is ignoring medicare as an issue. Hepburn says that Ignatieff recently wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper outlining Liberal priorities, including 13 initiatives. Not one of them dealt with health care. “Ignatieff’s failure to even mention health care was a huge mistake because Canada’s cherished medicare system is under siege,” writes Hepburn. The federal health accord, signed in 2004, expires in 2014. The 2004 accord gave the provinces $41 billion extra to help lower hospital wait times and improve overall health delivery. … A study of California hospitals by the non-profit Center for Studying Health System Change reports that, like Ontario, hospital mergers in the State actually ended up costing more. They say that insurance payment rates to the hospitals in some cases increased more than 200 per cent. … In Britain many hospitals are requiring friends and relatives to stand up during visits with hospitalized patients. They are also asking them to leave the flowers behind. “It is considered good practice by some (hospitals) that visitors and staff should not sit on beds, in order to reduce the risk of transmitting infections from one patient to the next,” states the guidelines from Britain’s department of health. In an article in the British Medical Journal, Dr. Iona Health argues the recommendation is unjustified and denies patients the chance to be close to their loved one. According to experts, there is no evidence to suggest preventing people from sitting on beds or banning fresh flowers results in lower infection rates. Some UK hospitals have extended the no sitting rule to include chairs.