New report warns of hospital deficits, longer ER wait times in Ontario

A new warning Monday that conditions are going from bad to worse in Ontario’s hospitals and that this could result in longer wait times in the Emergency Room, longer medical delays and more frustrated health care workers overwhelmed by too many patients.

This new report says people who go to hospitals for help are among those affected by these conditions.

It says there’s been a huge jump in wait times in hospital emergency rooms.

The report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says most Ontario hospitals are running up a deficit every year — they’re not taking in enough money to pay the bills.

Called Failure, By Design, it says one result is that 90 per cent of patients waited 4.5 hours for an assessment in an emergency room last year, without enough staff to keep up.

That was a 67 per cent increase from five years ago.

“Multiple indicators suggest that hospital funding austerity is undermining quality of care and access to care,” said Andrew Longhurst, an author at the CCPA. “Emergency department wait times are a ‘canary in the coal mines’ in terms of hospital performance and emergency department overcrowding signal that the overall health care system is struggling to meet demand.”

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The report says most of the 136 hospitals in Ontario are running deficits, including all hospitals in Halton, and most hospitals in Hamilton, Niagara, Haldimand and Brant.

With hospital workers already holding protests, and more to come, when there’s not enough to pay the bills, something gets cut back and workers see it happen to their patients.

“You see people suffer all the time,” said Michael Hurley, the president of the CUPE Hospital Unions Council. “You know, if we had more staff they wouldn’t suffer quite as much — you could take care of them better, but you’ll never be able to.”

Hurley says it leaves staff demoralized and despairing.

“It starts to eat away at you and eventually people walk away, because they can’t do it any more,” Hurley said. “It’s too soul-destroying. This stuff about going and crying in your car after your shift.”

Health Minister Sylvia Jones says the Ford government has been putting more money into hospitals, an increase of more than a billion dollars this year.

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She’s counting on hospitals to stretch those dollars.

“Hospitals are being asked to look at the long-term future and say what is your plan for your individual hospital corporation to make sure the money that you’re being funnelled through to your operating dollars, again 4 per cent for an historic fourth year in a row, is actually going to be spent on front line patient care,” said Jones.

Jones announced new measures Monday to allow pharmacists to give more injections to help take the pressure off other areas, but the opposition at Queen’s Park says that’s not going to fix hospital deficits.

“The minister of health doesn’t want to address that, wants to pretend everything is A-OK,” said the Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles. “The reality is people in Ontario are sicker, they’re taking longer and longer to get the health care they need, they’re being treated in hospital hallways, in closets.”

The new study says Ontario’s hospital sector is the most undersized in the country compared to its population, and the amount of money the province is planning to put into hospitals is expected to mean even fewer beds.

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