The Ontario Hospital Association must be finally feeling the pinch of fiscal restraint and so-called “funding reforms” that have worked against their bottom line for at least the past four years.
The OHA is asking that the government begin doing capacity planning – forecasting the specific need for a full range of specific health services. That not only includes forecasting the need for hospital services and beds (including types of beds), but also includes (but is not restricted to) a provincial needs assessment for long term care, assisted living, home care, primary care, and mental health services.
The ask was part of a rare Saturday press release, itself a follow-up to the OHA’s presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs last Thursday.
No doubt the OHA sees capacity planning as the first step in getting them out of the stranglehold the province has placed them in with declining real funding. The OHA has seen freezes in base funding for the past two years, and the two years before that funding was restricted to 1.5 per cent – well below what is needed to maintain the status quo.
OPSEU Diablogue 