Tag Archives: The Scarborough Hospital

$30 million back on hospital books as part of new purchasing model

Posted on April 23, 2013 | Leave a comment

At yesterday’s Central East LHIN The Scarborough Hospital (TSH) was asked to treat $2 million it thought it had coming back from Plexxus as “bad debt.”

Plexxus is a not-for-profit owned by 11 GTA hospitals, including TSH. A group-purchasing company, it uses the size of the 11 hospitals to negotiate better pricing on goods and services used by these hospitals. Many of the people who do purchasing for Plexxus are still employed by the 11 hospitals, some of them members of OPSEU.

As one of the 11, the question is, how could TSH write off bad debt essentially owed to itself, especially when the decisions on how this money got stranded was made by the group of hospitals?

David Yundt, President and CEO of Plexxus says he prefers not to call it bad debt, which suggests Plexxus is not paying back what it owes to its member hospitals.

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$2 million in bad debt adds to woes of The Scarborough Hospital

Posted on April 22, 2013 | 3 comments

Last week The Scarborough Hospital announced it was eliminating 98 positions as part of its efforts reduce a $17 million annual deficit. On top of that, the hospital has found itself saddled with $2 million in bad debt related to its participation in Plexxus, a joint-purchasing company it shares with 10 other GTA hospitals. The hospital is presently seeking to amortize that bad debt over a longer period of time.

Eliminating the deficit at a time of base funding freezes has been particularly painful. Last year The Scarborough Hospital was spurned as a potential suitor in a proposed merger with the Toronto East General Hospital. More recently the LHIN stepped in amid community uproar over a plan to move all maternal and newborn programs to the Birchmount campus of The Scarborough Hospital. The initial plan also called for Birchmount to become a centre for day surgery, leaving more complex procedures to the main campus.

While The Scarborough Hospital is still implementing 111 of 139 proposals to reduce costs – resulting in $8 million in annual savings – changes in service delivery require further community consultation and discussion between health service providers. To that end, the Central East LHIN told The Scarborough Hospital to work with the Rouge Valley Health System to look more broadly at service delivery in the eastern edge of the City of Toronto.

What these service changes will look like is anybody’s guess at this point.

The two hospitals are appointing representatives to a joint leadership committee that will look at how services are delivered in the Scarborough region. That committee will also include professional and community representation.

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A tale of two LHINs – Champlain could learn from Central East when it comes to community involvement

Posted on March 28, 2013 | Leave a comment

In the past few weeks we have been challenging the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to step up to the plate around cuts and transfers of services from The Ottawa Hospital.

Champlain LHIN CEO Chantale LeClerc has dug herself in for the fight, insisting that considerable changes to health service delivery in her region do not warrant an integration decision nor any additional public consultation.

Curiously, in her most recent letters to both OPSEU and the Ontario Health Coalition, she has suggested that regional volumes of endoscopies have not yet been decided and that the LHIN has no mechanism to transfer them outside of a hospital environment (LHINs have no jurisdiction over private clinics performing public OHIP work).

The Ottawa Hospital CEO Jack Kitts is publicly stating the hospital will perform 4,000 fewer endoscopies per year (initially it was 5,000 fewer) and that it was his expectation that these volumes would be picked up by independent community-based clinics and other regional hospitals.

Clearly the hospital CEO and the LHIN CEO are not on the same page even though the LHIN is telling us the hospital is merely following its accountability agreement.

Endoscopies will be coming under what are called “Quality Based Procedures” for the coming year. These QBP get funded separately from hospital global budgets. That means if The Ottawa Hospital decides to stop doing 4,000 endoscopies, it also stops getting funding for them. Unless TOH is losing money on these procedures, it doesn’t suggest that such cuts will do anything to aid their bottom line – the whole point of this “restructuring.” Until we know where these procedures are migrating to (if anywhere), we have no idea whether the region will be saving any money or whether the public will be maintaining access.

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Did The Scarborough Hospital hide its near insolvency from the LHIN?

Posted on March 1, 2012 | 1 comment

The merger between the Scarborough and Toronto East General hospitals may be off, but the Central East Local Health Integration Network certainly took note of one of the report’s statements – The Scarborough Hospital is near financial insolvency.

This may be the main reason why the Toronto East General Hospital backed off from a proposed merger, or as the consultant’s report states, was a “potential show stopper.”

The LHIN has since released a statement March 1st that suggest The Scarborough Hospital’s financial predicament may have been previously misrepresented.

“The report makes a number of observations related to the financial sustainability of The Scarborough Hospital that are not substantiated by evidence or data previously submitted by the hospital to the LHIN which will require some clarification by the hospital,” the LHIN release states.

Or in more common parlance, TSH CEO Dr. John Wright may have some explaining to do.

The LHIN also raised issues about how the merger talks had evolved, noting that the process lacked a transparent explanation of the vision, aims and scope of an integration, a clear understanding of the benefits to the community, nor an appropriate community engagement plan.

The Scarborough Hospital is expected before the LHIN on March 28th to outline its plan on how it will “move forward.”

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Toronto East General ends merger talks with The Scarborough Hospital

Posted on February 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

The merger is off.

In a surprise move, the Toronto East General Hospital board pulled out of discussions with The Scarborough Hospital over a possible merger.

The hospital noted the lack of support by the Central East Local Health Integration Network for such a merger (see Friday’s BLOG story).

A $90,000 consultant’s report, initially to have been released to the public in March, was released on the TEGH web site Friday. The CEOs have had the report since February 17.

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LHIN warns merger of two Toronto hospitals could undermine access and quality

Posted on February 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

As The Scarborough Hospital (TSH) openly advocates for a merger with the Toronto East General, CEO Dr. John Wright may have difficulty persuading the Central East Local Health Integration Network of the merits of bringing the two hospitals together.

In a preliminary report recently posted online, the Central East LHIN raises a number of concerns, including the fact that such a merger does not align with their clinical services plan.

The CE LHIN states there is no evidence that “this will improve quality or access,” suggesting that it may possibly undermine it.

The LHIN states that the current activity is not client-focused, lacks a clear engagement strategy, and has not garnered physician support.

They further state there is no evidence to suggest a merger would assist in addressing population health challenges within Scarborough.

The LHIN suggests that if TSH is interested in an alliance, that it would make more sense to look towards “integration” with the Scarborough Centenary Hospital, which is part of the Rouge Valley Health System.

This is not the first time that suggestion has been made. Community groups in Ajax, who have never been happy having their hospital linked to Scarborough Centenary, have long advocated that Centenary should join TSH, leaving the Ajax-Pickering Hospital to link to Durham’s Lakeridge Health.

No application has yet been made by the two hospitals to proceed with a formal merger.

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CEO says he wants to increase power base through Toronto hospital mergers

Posted on February 24, 2012 | 1 comment

After all the talk about system integration it’s notable that the CEO of a Ontario public hospital should argue for a merger on the basis of enhancing the institution’s power base.

This hardly strikes us as being in sync with the present evidence-based narratives emerging from the Drummond Report or the Minister of Health’s new action plan. Isn’t health planning supposed to be about providing care in the right place at the right time by most appropriate provider? The “power” scenario suggests the province may be making decisions on a different basis.

It is even more surprising given one of the two potential dance partners in the merger is Rob Devitt, CEO of the Toronto East General Hospital.

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