Ontario health system headed for 'crisis' with overcrowded hospitals

Province must top up funding for hospitals in the fall economic statement to head off a crisis, the OHA says.

Thestar.com
Sept. 11, 2017
By Theresa Boyle

Emergency department wait times hit record levels this summer, according to the umbrella organization representing Ontario hospitals, prompting it to warn that the health-care system is headed for a "crisis" this winter unless the province takes quick action.

With weeks to go before flu season strikes, conditions strongly point to a capacity crunch this winter without further action, the Ontario Hospital Association said in a statement issued Monday.

"Many hospitals have operated through the summer under very unusual and worrying surge conditions," OHA president Anthony Dale said. "The evidence strongly suggests that ... further investments are urgently needed this fiscal year in order to ensure timely access to services for patients."

This past July, 10 per cent of patients waited longer than the provincial average of 30.4 hours to be placed in an inpatient bed from the emergency department, according to the association. This is the longest that patients have ever had to wait in the month of July since the province began measuring these waits nine years ago, the OHA said.

Hospital activity normally slows down in the summer, but over the last few months, many of the province's largest hospitals were more than 100 per cent full, the organization said.

The OHA's statement called for "rapid and aggressive new investment in hospital services, and services across the (health system), to avoid a possible capacity crisis within Ontario's health-care system this winter."

The organization is hoping that the provincial government will include extra funding for hospitals in the fall economic statement, as it did last year.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins said that while he is aware there is always more work to be done, health care is a top priority for his government. That's why the province hiked operating funding for hospitals by 3.1 per cent this year, for an increase of $518 million, he said.

Hoskins also pointed out that his government is spending more than $20 billion on hospital infrastructure over the next decade.

The OHA is worried about a repeat of last winter, which saw many hospitals create "unconventional spaces" for patients because they were so full. Hospitals were forced to convert lounges, classrooms, offices and even storage rooms into patient rooms.

"The root of today's capacity challenge is that far too many frail elderly patients can't get access to the care they really need outside of the hospital setting," Dale said, adding that the province has a good plan to reform the system but needs to pick up the pace.

Frail seniors often find themselves stuck in hospital beds even though they no longer need acute care. There is not enough space for them in long-term care homes or they are not frail enough to require such care. At the same time, they are too frail to return home, even with home-care supports.

There is a big push on in Ontario for the creation of affordable, subsidized congregate living arrangements for seniors where they could get regular help from personal support workers and health-care professionals.

New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath said the mandate of the upcoming public inquiry into the murder of long-term care home residents should be expanded to address such issues.

The inquiry will look into the circumstances surrounding eight murders to which nurse Elizabeth Wettlaufer pleaded guilty in June.

Horwath called on the government to reverse decade of cuts to the health system.

"The last Conservative government fired 6,000 nurses, eliminated 7,000 beds and shuttered dozens of hospitals. When the Liberals came to power, instead of reversing those cuts, they froze health care spending, slashed more front-line jobs, and continued to worsen the health-care crisis across the province," she said.