When the province decided to call its most recent crown agencies Local Health Integration Networks, it was clear where the emphasis lay.
Rather than plan a system based on need, it appears the primary function of the LHIN was to ‘integrate’ health services.
Integration can be broadly interpreted – it doesn’t necessarily mean mergers of health providers, although it can be. It can also mean greater cooperation and collaboration between providers, or transfers or even swaps of services from one entity to another. Under the Act’s definition, integration can also be the winding up or closure of a service – something most of us would not see under the normal dictionary interpretation of ‘integration.’ The extension of that illogical concept is that by blowing up the entire health system you’d have full integration.
It seems the province was short a philosopher when they needed one.
The province maintains that about 250 integrations have taken place since the LHINs came into effect in 2006 – most being of more recent vintage. That surprises us given much of the system seems to be still dipping a toe into the integration pool.
Some integrations happen by default. Sometimes a small agency just decides it can’t continue any more and the LHIN is left scrambling to transfer the work to another health provider. Perram House hospice, for example, gave the Toronto Central LHIN just a couple of weeks notice to say they were calling it quits.
Just because a service transfers from point A to point B, doesn’t mean that the system as a whole becomes any more fluid or patient-centered. Sometimes it makes it worse.
OPSEU Diablogue 