Nine Toronto hospitals, health centres getting $68 million to ease wait times

Nine Toronto hospitals to share $68 million to ease wait times and boost care

Thestar.com
May 5, 2017
By Rob Ferguson

Nine central Toronto hospitals and health-care centres will share an extra $68 million in provincial funding this year to ease wait times, Health Minister Eric Hoskins says.

The cash infusion was detailed Friday as Hoskins visited Sick Kids - his third hospital stop in five days - to tout the extra $518 million, or 3.1-per-cent increase, for hospitals in last week’s budget from Finance Minister Charles Sousa.

Overall, there will be 2,800 more hip and knee replacements, another 2,100 cataract surgeries, and an increase of 28,000 hours of MRI services, for example.

“This will make a big dent,” vowed Hoskins, who has been under fire from NDP Leader Andrea Horwath over cases where emergency room patients have been left lingering in hospital hallways, TV rooms and shower areas awaiting beds.

“There are some completely unacceptable examples of what’s happened in hospitals recently,” the health minister acknowledged to reporters after announcing an additional $9 million for Sick Kids.

The University Health Network - which includes Toronto General - gets an extra $29.27 million, the Sinai Health System $11.6 million, St. Michael’s $8.95 million and Women’s College $2.47 million, for example.

In Toronto specifically, areas getting assistance with increased funding include cardiovascular services, cochlear implants, critical care, organ and tissue donation, some spinal surgeries, bariatric care and clinics for Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, inherited metabolic disorders and red blood disorders.

Although the Ontario Hospital Association had asked for an extra $850 million infusion for hospitals in total to improve their capacity to serve patients, after years of no funding increases as demand for health services keeps growing, chairman James McCracken applauded the $518 million as “vital.”

“It will bring some stability,” said McCracken, who joined two doctors in saying the government’s promised pharmacare program, providing more than 4,400 drugs free to anyone 24 and under will also ease demands on emergency rooms and hospital beds.

That’s because more young Ontarians will get the medicines they need even though their parents could not always afford it, said Dr. Ronald Cohn, chief of pediatrics at Sick Kids.

“Families really are struggling,” said Cohn, who noted the hospital has been unable to discharge some patients because their parents could not afford the essential medications that were covered while still in hospital.

Children have also ended up in hospital with asthma attacks because their patents could not afford inhalers, or puffers, that have been prescribed, he added.

Premier Kathleen Wynne’s cabinet ministers have been on the road selling the budget all week as the Liberal government, struggling in the polls behind the Progressive Conservatives, hopes to improve its political fortunes with the next provincial election just 13 months away.

All hospitals in the province are getting a minimum 2-per-cent increase in funding this year, with the amounts depending on demand for specialized procedures and treatments, population growth in their service area and efficiency levels.