Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Ontario Liberals can't measure hospital surgical capacity

To Jim Bradley, M.P.P., St. Catharines:

Today (Dec.11, 2007) the Toronto Sun reported:

The 2007 auditor general's report has been tabled at Queens Park, casting light on disturbing revelations about driver education.Information mismanagement has also being blamed for poor service on GO trains. GO Train delays can be blamed on poor economic forecasting by the crown organization." Both the overcrowding and the delays in service have gotten worse over the years," Auditor General Jim McCarter said.”

Well, Mr. Bradley…this is an excellent time to stand up and rail in the legislature, with the utmost fury, at all the inequities and failures in the GO Transit and driver’s education systems, obviously caused by the previous government over the last four years…oh, wait, that would be your own government.

Also, Mr. Bradley: where did your government spend $9 million (CHCH News, Dec.11, 2007) that was supposedly meant for the problem-plagued sex-offender registry?

During the election campaign, barely two months ago, you downplayed that there were problems in your Liberal health-care monopoly. But, as Jordana Huber reported (Can West, Dec.11, 2007):

“The auditor general also said the lack of specific information on the number and hours of use of operating rooms made it difficult todetermine whether there is enough hospital capacity to meet the surgical needs of Ontarians”.

This is astounding. Mr. Bradley, why do the needs of patients come second in your system? How is it possible that Liberals have no measurements to determine the surgical capacity of your health monopoly?

Why did Dalton McGuinty, then, claim he 'needed' the billions in health taxes your Liberals have raked in since 2004? Can your government explain on what basis you were raising taxes, if your Liberals had no idea of your system's efficiency and capacity?

Or, will your Liberal government say: why should we bother to find out how efficient our monopoly is – it's a monopoly! We have no competition and need not worry about costs, or sustainability, or even service, for that matter. So, get in line, wait, and be quiet!

Is this what happens when Liberal politicians, who despise the American health system, control the destiny of our health monopoly?

The American system has all these administrative costs that Liberals smugly laugh at, but also has the capacity available to accept Ontario patients…capacity which the Liberals, through administrative neglect, have failed to quantify, let alone provide, in Ontario.

During the recent election, the McGuinty Liberals bragged about the 100 hospitals they were building all over Ontario. Where are they? St. Catharines hasn’t seen a new hospital, tellingly, since the 1960s, since socialization became the norm in Ontario. The Toronto Sun (Dec. 10, 2007) wrote in “Sick of poor health care” of one Liberal botched hospital-building escapade: in Brampton, Ontario, 1,000 residents marched to protest that their new hospital opened not only under-staffed, but with under-trained staff as well, reporting “patients wait up to 12 hours in the emergency room only to deal with understaffed and insensitive health care workers”.

"Insensitive", eh? Why, isn’t this simply a systemic reflection of the Liberal’s own insensitive health monopoly…you know, the one that was referred to as a “cruel game” by Ontario’s ombudsman? (A 12-hour wait..and that's in a new Liberal hospital! It's best not to let Sicko director Michael Moore hear of this. His film mythologized Ontario's single-payer health-care Utopia, where patients are cheerfully seen within minutes in ER!)

The Toronto Sun (Dec.11, 2007) reported:

“A supervisor will be appointed at Brampton Civic Hospital in the wake of a protest by residents over conditions at the new facility. More than 1,000 Brampton residents took to the streets Sunday, claiming patients wait up to 12 hours in the emergency department before receiving care. They called on the province to hire more staff, cut wait times, open more beds and re-open Peel Memorial Hospital. A spokesman for Health Minister George Smitherman said yesterday the supervisor "will establish a greater presence on the part of the government to ensure that the quality of care given to patients is of a high standard."”

So now, this government–run botch–job will be run by more government bureaucrats? The Liberals didn’t already have enough “presence” in this hospital they were building? The Liberals didn’t already “ensure that the quality of care given to patients is of a high standard”? Were the Liberals planning their health policy by the seat of their pants?? Were the Liberals skimping on the management of building this – and the other supposed 99 – hospitals? One wonders where the Liberal’s accountability lies. What exactly is your Liberal government's specific definition of "a high standard" of patient care? Is the McCreith/Holmes charter challenge in Ontario reflective of your Liberal high standards?

There was no talk during the last campaign about wait times and staff shortages and bed shortages…your party dismissed these symptoms of your authoritarian health monopoly’s failures.

Mr. Bradley, did you have a chance to read Michael Coren's article in the Toronto Sun (Dec.8, 2007), "Two-tier trauma"? I would be interested to hear your comments.

Mr. Bradley, will you stand up in the house and demand that your Liberal’s restrictive Commitment to the Future of Medicare act be phased out and abolished?

We are looking at the future, which you and your Liberals have created, right here; and to me, the answer is not more socialized health-care.

[Dalton McGuinty, CTV Leaders' Debate, Sept.20, 2007]

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