Lets end the surgery backlog

 

The number of hospital beds in Ontario remained unchanged for the last 20 years (through Liberal and Conservative governments) but Ontario’s population grew by 3 million. Now Ford plans to cut the extra beds put in place for the Pandemic despite Ontario Hospital Association recommendations to keep them. A million Ontario residents are waiting for surgery but Ford is only addressing the delays that exceed medical guidelines! So if you are waiting for surgery the government isn’t going to do a thing about it until your situation becomes critical.


Here are the OHA Recommendations for budget 2022.


  • For the 2022-23 fiscal year, annual year-over-year base operating pressure:  3.5% ($735 million) 

  • Dedicated funding to reduce the massive backlog of procedures and services. 

  • Continued reimbursement for COVID-related expenses and lost revenues 

  •  2022/23 to be a “learning year” to determine which of the COVID-related expenses and lost revenues plus inflationary cost pressures, should be rolled into hospital global budgets for future years. 

  • Keeping the additional beds and related funding allocations that were made over the past two years. 

  • Creation of a new, separate program for direct reimbursement of cyber security and asbestos removal efforts due to prohibitive costs that are not part of hospitals’ historical budgets. 

  • Support for the Paying for Quality approach for inpatient schizophrenia care as recommended by the Hospital Advisory Committee.


Ford says he is spending more and more on Health care but he’s not even keeping up with inflation. An NDP government led by Andrea Horwath will act on the OHA recommendations and fix the current surgery backlog.


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