Liberal Dwight Duncan's tiresome health-accord fear-mongering

Further to my previous post...

Debt-ridden Liberal Dwight Duncan hasn't been able to spin the health-transfer accord the way McGuinty's greasy Liberals had wanted him to. Here are some of the perspectives on monopolist-pusher Duncan's irresponsible recent foot-stamping and deceptive fear-mongering:

On Dec.20, 2011 Sun Media's Mark Dunn  reported in "Ont., Que. need to fix health system or feel the pain: Expert":

"Ontario and Quebec are the most vocal critics of a new health funding formula because their own budgets are hemorrhaging red ink, says an expert on finances from the western home of medicare.
"It's much easier to blame the federal government for their problems than to actually sit down and address their own situation, their own spending," says Janice MacKinnon, a former finance minister in Roy Romanow's NDP government.
Now a University of Saskatchewan fiscal policy professor, MacKinnon says Canada's two largest provinces are failing at righting their economies.
She described Monday's no-strings deal as "very fair" and "reasonable" compared to the present transfer agreement that calls for annual transfers of 6% - a figure Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says is unsustainable.
Ontario and Quebec finance ministers hyperventilated over the deal that gives the provinces five years to fix their systems before the new funding arrangement kicks in - one that ties funding to GDP growth and never slips below 3%.
Both provinces are broke and the economic outlook is grim - hence the provinces wagging a finger on one hand and stretching out the other hand for more cash.
MacKinnon says the 2004 original deal was flawed from the outset because the biggest chunk went to salaries, with some of it used to lower wait times, but not to the broader issue of fixing the health system.
With an aging population and all that comes with that demographic, MacKinnon says provinces are out of touch with health needs and service delivery.
She points to the cost of MRIs, hip and knee replacements and other ailments that develop with age. A Saskatchewan study suggested millions in savings if some of those procedures were conducted outside hospitals.
"You really have to get serious about changing your system to make it more affordable," she said".
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Note that the same above story was also carried in the Dec.21, 2011 St.Catharines Standard, buried back on page B6, but did not include the last four paragraphs!! Why - was there something MacKinnon said which would upset secretive Niagara health monopoly pusher Jim Bradley? Like that Bradley's and Kim Craitor's monopolist Liberals "are out of touch with health needs and service delivery"??

MacKinnon - and she's an NDP eer! - is saying that Flaherty's deal was very fair and reasonable - yet, Jim Bradley's and Kim Craitor's Liberal status-quo-pushing, health-care-monopoly-enforcing statists are already moaning and whining about it. As is now usually the case, the St.Catharines Standard hasn't yet bothered to interview their local MPP, Jim Bradley, about the new health accord!

Janice MacKinnon, writing in the National Post back on July 14, 2004 noted:
“One of the greatest threats to medicare is posed by those who cling tenaciously to the status-quo and claim they are defending Tommy Douglas’s vision of medicare by doing so. Too often in politics, what we cherish most we inadvertently destroy by believing that protecting something means freezing it in time, when in fact protecting it may require dramatic change”. (see here, pg. 30)

Ignorant Ontario Liberals such as Jim Bradley and former health minister George Smitherman ended up being the poster-boys 'threatening and destroying the vision of medicare'; a prescient MacKinnon may well have been writing about them in 2004, considering what these Liberals ended up doing in Ontario from 2004 on! Their Liberal majority government was all about clinging tenaciously to some faded, failing, monopolist, anti-patient-choice status-quo mythology of the untouchable Saint Tommy Douglas. McGuinty's Liberals were status-quo-enforcing reactionary thugs, and Good Ole Nice Guy Jim Bradley was one of the leading proponents. Duncan is in denial about how his Liberals have destroyed health care in Ontario.

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On Dec.20, 2011, the CBC reported on Dwight Doofus Duncan's deceptive Liberal fear-mongering claim that "health cuts will hurt hospitals";  to which here were some of the reader's replies:

EdmundBurke wrote:

EVER INCREASING HEALTH CARE COSTS UNSTAINABLE
Linking health care increases to the GDP is a pragmatic, bold, fiscally responsible alteration in the right direction; however, an even more contemplative small-c fiscally responsible conservative modification that would be attentive to the $580 billion debt and the $30 billion deficit would be to implement it immediately. Implementing it in 2017/18 will make it more difficult to eliminate the deficit, and would save billions in interest payments.
It's nauseating to listen to the fiscally unaccountable extremist on the far-left moronically screaming about limiting the increments in health care spending. Socialist provincial functionaries like Ontario's Duncan, who refuses to make any significant cuts to eliminate his $16 billion deficit must analyze their own socialistic-inspired, financially moronic budgets that are spending their provinces into insolvency.
A genuine small-c fiscal conservative would begin the process to re-write the Canada Health Act that currently places control of our top-down, government-rationed system in hands central planning, incompetent bureaucrats.
Government must welcome inclusion by the more efficient private sector, or permit the provinces to compete by experimenting to uncover cost savings. Health care cost $135 billion a year that are filtered through layers of expensive and wasteful bureaucracy before any of it ever gets to the actual health-care providers. Since 1998 federal health transfers to the provinces increased at an average annual rate of over 10%. Total health spending accounted for 11.4 per cent of Canada's GDP in 2009 compared with an average of 9.5 per cent across OECD countries. Canada's health spending per person was valued at $4,363 U.S., with the OECD average being $3,223 U.S. Rather than criminalize the purchase of private health care; the government must permit a parallel system similar to that allowed in every other Western democracy.
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Mr. Right 2U wrote:

This guy is too much!
He has the audacity to refer to Mike Harris, and the cuts he had to made to villify the feds.
So let's review his train of thought.
Mike Harris had the federal transfer payments cut by a liberal government.
That was Harris' fault.
Dalton McGuinty is having the federal rates cut-in five years from now, and he instantly points back to Mike Harris.
Am I missing something here?
You can't blame the person who faced immediate cuts for what someone else deprived him of. (Paul Martin)
But you can blame the feds for cuts (in 5 years from now) for what the premier must budget for come 5 years from now. (Stephen Harper).
The double talk coming from politicians these days is indicative of the way the view the voter.
Hint: We must all be forgetful idiots in thier eyes.
Hey Duncan! You can fool some of the people some of the time. But quit trying to fool everyone all the time.
You hopefully, will be unemployed when the reduced inflationary payments come along. If for some bizarre reason you are still there, I hope you take back all you have said about Mike Harris and eat a little humble pie.
You have hidden from reality for years. Paying off workers to get yourself elected. Now you face what others have faced, and you cry like a little baby.
Maybe, just maybe, if you had read the winds and could see past your rose-coloured glasses, you would have known and accepted the facts of constantly increasing costs to satisfy a blaoted and over-paid labour force was not in the best interest of Ontario. Rather, the best interest of your party.
What a patriot you must be!
I can hardly wiat for your next twisted take on reality. It's like watching the muppet show, only not funny.
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Paul Young wrote:

Duncan has no clue about healthcare and its funding and/or what is wrong with healthcare?

Let's look at some facts about healthcare:

1. LHIN - why was this Agency created? Well, because McGuinty wanted take responsibiliites from MHO and created LHIN. So why did McGuinty not fixed the root causes at MHO. I am all for ensuring moneys get to healthcare, but i am not for duplicate departments that can be eliminated by streamlining business process and/or creating better compliance/governance models at MHO.

2. eHealth is a good idea, but poorly implemented. I am all for technology, especially if it helps with managing healthcare costs. However, eHealth has been poorly managed with lack of cost controls and oversight.

3. Drug costs - the government needs to work with drug companies, especially on drug costs.

4. CEO Hospitals/administration need to have the salaries/benefits reviewed and look at ways to better align it to performance. Performance metrics should included wait times, bed utilization, etc.

5. Where is the drummond report in his discussion? Drummond has already stated that there are waste in govt

McGuinty and Duncan only know one thing that is tax and spend. McGuinty and Duncan managed government by throwing money at the symptoms, not the causes. This is how mcguinty has dealt with governing Ontario since 2003. I am tired of blaming Harris, especially when Ontario receives higher transfer payments and equalization payments, which Harris never received. It is easy to blame Harris, but what did McGuinty do once in office how about the health premium tax. So, McGuinty needs to take a hard look at himself because he has been a failure to Ontario. There is a reason McGuinty has the name quick hits!
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slightly right wrote:

waaaaaah wahhhhhhhh. Cripes Duncan the slow down in spending will not happen for 5 years and your blaming the Feds now! Three percent is plenty and you know it. Just because you are in the hole spending like a mad man on "green jobs" and other make work programs do not blame lack of coin for a provincial responsibility on anyone but you and your budgets!

Every Canadian can see through you and your other have not Provinces complaints. You do not appreciate the Billions you get plus the built in increases for what there are. Its what Canada can afford to give you for Increased payments year after year.

Yes -- you are a have not right now---- you put your hand out more than you chip in. Yes it will change but wow guy its a increase not a reduction/cut back!
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savant1 wrote:

Duncan and McGuinty don't know how to spend wisely.
With a provincial debt that they have doubled to $220 billion and which is growing by $59 million each day I would have thought the Ontario liberals would want to do more than rob Canadian taxpayers, inflate energy costs with a "green" initiative and avoid government economies.
Remember:

1) the billion dollar scandal at eHealth continues. 109 staff still receiving $100 K salaries.
2) the provincial budget deficit adds $16.7 billion annually to the current $302 billion debt..
3) the 'golden parachute' severance contracts for disgraced public service executives such as Eleanor Clitheroe continue.
4) the Samsung Korea windmills guarantee exhorbitant feed-in tarriffs for electricity
5) granting of war measure powers to police in Toronto during the G20 resulted in civil liberties breaches.
6) additional schemes have increased the "cost of government" 77 % in 7 years.
7) enabling Stewardship Ontario to attach an eco-fee on dangerous products like aspirin, cement, fertilizers..
8) not enforcing spending controls at the OLG until breeches were uncovered by the ombudsman.
9) granting a 14% salary increase to Ontario MPP's in the middle of a recession.
10) creation of 13 LHINs to employ failed liberal politicians. None have treated a patient yet but each CEO is paid handsomely.
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DBT1979 wrote:

What hurts hospitals is that they refuse to take my money. I'm not saying get rid of the social safety net or not provide care to people who can't afford it. I'm suggesting that if I want to spend my hard earned money on healthcare, I should be able to.

If you want to spend your money on a second car or a 500,000 house in Toronto, you can choose that option for your family.
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Readers in the Dec.22, 2011 National Post also responded with views on Dwight Duncan's Doofusry:

Tony Beckett wrote:

Re: New Health Rule Angers Premiers, Dec. 20.
On my way to the fitness facility in the hotel where the ministers of Finance were meeting on Monday, I just missed the interviews and palavers. As an ex-provincial budget bureaucrat who tried to limit increases to health budgets in Ontario and British Columbia, I was pleased with the approach proposed by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Phasing out the existing 6% annual increases after several years and capping future increases to GDP increases with a floor of 3%, is very generous.
I was appalled by the whinging of provincial finance ministers, even if they were perhaps only crocodile tears, given that healthcare funding has become governments' largest expenditures. I hope that the disproportionate future increases will remain affordable to taxpayers, given demographic and economic factors.
As part of governments' needs to review expenditures, they should pay particular attention to future capital and equipment costs, fiscal year-end splurges, regional health authority empire-building, the pay and benefits of health-care workers, overmedication of seniors and creative billing by some physicians to medical service plans.
Health-care costs can and must be controlled, and incentives provided to those who show the way.

and

Jeff Spooner wrote:

After Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced that the federal government would no longer be a bottomless pit when it came to health-care funding, Ontario's Finance Minister Dwight Duncan gave the most over-the-top reaction. If you believe his rant, the Conservatives were destroying federal and provincial relations and that they didn't care about the health of all Canadians.
The reality, of course, is that without the impetus of a control on federal transfers, many of the provinces would continue to drag their heels on any meaningful innovation in how health care is delivered. Canadians now will have the opportunity over the next five years to see which provinces are making an effort to move forward and improve health care for their citizens, and which provinces continue to whine. My bet is that Ontario will be in the latter group.
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Yes: Liberals Dalton McGuinty, Jim Bradley and Kim Craitor were and still are in that latter group, whose failing and arrogant idea was to stifle health care development by thuggish statist fiat and by ideological monopoly-forcing demagoguery.
Let's hope, though, that Ontario's Liberal goons are gone before five years.
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See also here
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Despite the above reactions to the fed's transfer proposals, it was revealing (and disgusting) how Niagara This Week's editor Mike Williscraft came up with fresh McGuinty-bootlickery in his Dec.24, 2011 'piece of Justin Trudeau' column "A glimpse into Santa's Christmas mailbag".

Williscraft's column should have more accurately been titled "A glimpse into the making of Liberal-friendly propaganda".

With this shallow column, Williscraft has clearly already begun crafting next year's narrative propaganda of  'poor ole Liberals are victims of federal health cuts', which his favoured Liberal party obviously wants Williscraft to peddle.

So - like Dwight Duncan -  that's what Williscraft is also trying to do.

Williscraft DIDN'T actually bother to ascertain what NHS supervisor Kevin Smith's REAL thoughts were; the slick Williscraft propagandized HIS OWN Liberal-friendly narrative, and falsely attributed it to the NHS's Smith, all disguised, of course, as a "Christmas wish story".

'Why, it's fake, ya see; it ain't real' Williscraft will say. But that's the beauty of Williscraft's propaganda.

Williscraft didn't have the nuts to actually get Kevin Smith to say the words which pamphleteer Williscraft shoved into Smith's mouth: that would then have become an actual worthy story; what Williscraft did here was turn McGuinty's real Liberal health care fiasco into a propagandist's joke.

Williscraft didn't actually bother contacting Smith, nor Jim Bradley, nor Kim Craitor, nor Dalton McGuinty, nor Dwight Duncan, nor Deb Matthews, nor any of the Liberal-appointed LHIN lackeys for their REAL comments and reaction to the REAL health transfer story.

Williscraft -strangely hahaha!- couldn't even find any imaginary 'lump of coal' commentary to shove into any real Liberal's mouth, within his fake-wish column, either..!

Williscraft made light of Niagara's health issues using his faux-wish column to further what must be his pet agenda (to propagandize for McGuinty and protect his incompetent Liberals from blowback to their killer C. diff fiasco, by falsely involving Smith, as if his comments were funny, or reflective) thereby dumping McGuinty's eight-year-long Liberal culpability in Niagara's health mess conveniently onto the federal government.

This facile approach of the Liberal-licking Niagara media is becoming patently obvious; eventually Niagara This Week's Williscraft and the St.Catharines Standard's Wendy Metcalfe will have to ferret out Jim Bradley's Liberals, and to actually begin holding them responsible for their constitutional health care responsibilities.
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...and in this corner, Ole Dwight 'The Deficit' Duncan!

This article, "New health rule angers premiers" (National Post, Dec.20, 2011), noted some reactions by delegates at the federal-provincial health-transfer-payment talks:

"This is not fair, it is unCanadian," said Manitoba Finance Minister Stan Struthers. "It is not so much creating wealth as it redistributing wealth, and we are redistributing wealth from some of provinces who have a very limited capacity, to some of the richest provinces."
Mr. Struthers called the move "a slap in the face" by Ottawa.

Ahhh, yes: the good ole I'll slap ya in the face cuz you're "Un-Canadian" canard!

Wow: this is the same kind of jingoistic deceptive-nationalistic-rhetoric, the same ole kind of crap which MPP Good Ole Jim Bradley and his smug McGuintyite Liberals used to regularly spew in Ontario! Can the smug socialist rhetoric of "Slippery Slope"; of "Americanization"; of  "Two-tier"; of  "Hidden Agenda"; of "Ole Tommy Douglas is spinning in his grave", be far behind?!?

Status-quo Struthers, the 'Great Re-Distributor', is exactly the kind of obstructive reactionary which former Liberal MP Keith Martin wrote of, who stick their head in the sand while prosletyzing at the crumbling altar of Tommy Douglas.

But socialist Struthers is not alone: Ontario's status-quo-monopolist Liberals - naturally - also were whining:

Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, the most outspoken critic of the proposals so far, said the new formula will cost his province $400-million in health funding. "It means less access to quality health care, from sea to sea to sea, in French and English, in Ontario, Quebec and all of these provinces," he said.
"This, in my view, destabilizes the federation to some extent and will make it still more difficult for us to provide the basic services we're required to and at the same time get back to balanced [budgets]."
He took particular issue with how Mr. Flaherty "put the document in front of us and said, 'This is how it is going to be.' And that's just no way to do business."

Wow!! Talk about a hypocritical 'piece of Justin Trudeau'! Duncan reeks of it!!

Duncan, McGuinty, and Bradley shoved a lot of things onto Ontarians, simply telling us 'that's how it's going to be'!! What Liberal hypocrites!

Duncan and his greaseball Liberals FORCED a new health tax onto Ontarians!

Duncan and his single-payer-health-monoply-enforcing Liberals arrogantly DE-LISTED previously-covered health services! Ontario patients had no say!!

They forced the LHIN's onto Ontario!

They forced a Green Energy fiasco onto Ontario!

They forced their secret G-20 law onto Torontonians!

For hypocrite Liberals such as whiny Ole Dunco, that was wthe Liberal way of 'doing business'!

Duncan and his negligent Liberals have "de-stabilized" healthcare in Niagara, forcing cuts and HIP plans onto the NHS, to the point where we've had nearly 40 patients killed this year in two C.diff outbreaks - with no explanation from Duncan 's Liberals why this had happened, seeing as the Liberals had been geting ALL their promised billions already, under the current accord, since 2004.

As the Dec.21, 2011 National Post  pointed out:

"In 2004, when these same provinces agreed to the current funding formula with then-prime minister Paul Martin, it was on the understanding that they would use the 10-year accord to find ways to make health-care funding sustainable. That didn't happen, and now they want another decade to delay making the kind of tough choices needed to sustain medicare, while someone else picks up the tab. But all reasonable people know that the status quo can't last forever."

Yet, Duncan's duplicitous Liberals smugly forced their failing ideological status-quo health monopoly onto Ontarians, spinning yarns that it would last forever.
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see reaction from Kelly McParland; from Christine Blizzard
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Liberal health-care: once, free for all; now, a free-for-all

Don Meisner wrote in “We spend more on health care, but where is it going?”, (St. Catharines Standard, Apr.9, 2008):

“Re: Blame hospital woes on Bill 26, The Standard, April 1.

Stanley Laugher should blame our health-care woes on Bob Rae. When he was premier, he gave the nurses a huge raise without the proper increase of funds to hospitals.
When Rae left office he left an $11-billion deficit and we were in a recession. Premier Mike Harris turned that around and even cut taxes and gave us a rebate.
The current government was allowed to add $1.5 billion to the deficit and blame it on Harris.
In four short years, the Liberals have increased spending by close to 50 per cent and have given us the largest tax increase - which they don't call a tax increase.
Being a senior, I have not had a break in taxes since Harris was premier. What the province spends money on in its budget doesn't affect me very much except on health - and the health-care dollars don't seem to be targeted very well as there is still a lot of debt at hospital boards throughout the province.”

I wonder if St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley will bother to answer the above, another health-care letter from one of his constituents?

Wait a minute – Jim’s busy as a crime-fighter now – thinking about confiscating vehicles and suspending the licenses of people caught with illegal guns. Just a thought, Jim: how about supporting tougher mandatory, no-plea-bargain jail time for criminals possessing illegal weapons?

When they’re in jail, they won’t need the car, nor the license. Does Bradley support the federal government’s crime bill? Has Bradley badgered the Liberal-dominated senate to quickly pass that legislation? Liberals: soft on crime?...feh!

But hey, ‘coincidentally’ rolling with Toronto mayor David ‘Hiring-more-cops-is-too-expensive’ Miller’s gun-ban call, Jim Bradley's Liberals can look like they're actually doing something, when they're not: smoke and mirrors. (Much like the Liberal 'review of reviews' at the NHS)

It’s better to whine about the federal government’s supposed-lack of a ‘national gun ban’, than for Ontario Liberal MPP’s to explain why newspapers such as the St. Catharines Standard carry headlines like “Hospitals may have to cut costs” (Apr.9, 2008), or “Many hospitals forecast deficits”, (Toronto Star, Apr.9, 2008).

Liberal MPP Jim Bradley continues to hide and smugly avoid explaining why an increasing number of his government-run health-care system’s hospitals are in deficit.

Can Jim Bradley or Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman explain what Smitherman means when he says (in regards to hospitals, which, to balance their (Liberal) budgets, are considering laying off nurses and closing beds) that “the alternative is to have a free-for-all where the hospitals spend whatever they want and send the bill at the end of the year, and the people’s health-care system can’t be sustained on that basis” ?

Can Bradley or Smitherman provide any examples of where the Niagara Health System, for example, is flagrantly spending its Liberal-rationed budget?

Where is the NHS spending money unnecessarily? Where is this alleged “free-for-all” taking place?!

The much-vaunted medicare-monopoly scheme so-extolled by the Tommy Douglas crowd was all about sending the bill to the government!!

It was all about health-care being (supposedly) free for all - wasn't it?

The David Peterson Liberal government’s extra-billing ban was all about sending the bill to the government!!

The McGuinty Liberal’s Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act was all about sending the bill to the government!

When were we notified that the “people’s system” (as Smitherman calls it) now consists of imposed cost-containment cuts, budget limits, rationing, and premium increases – and all that within a restrictive monopoly where patients are legally banned by Liberal legislation from obtaining alternate private health coverage?

Another story, “Liberals misled voters over coverage of prostate tests, opposition charges”, (St. Catharines Standard, Apr.10, 2008) reported that during the 2007 election, the Liberals coyly weren’t specific that the timing of their promises to cover PSA tests wouldn’t start until January 2009. Smitherman “admitted there hadn’t been a lot of publicity about the timing. “I’m not sure if it was announced before,” he said. Oh, how convenient!

Yet somehow, Smitherman is sure that the “people’s system” is in a free-for-all spending frenzy?

Ontario Liberals claim medicare is a "free-for-all": so they cut hospital beds and nurses!

Joanna Smith wrote in “Hospital cuts spark storm”, (Toronto Star, April 9, 2008):

“Health Minister George Smitherman said there will be no "blank cheque" to help hospitals facing staff and service cuts despite a storm that erupted yesterday over the loss of up to 72 nursing positions at two GTA hospitals.
"How can you justify the firing of nurses?" Progressive Conservative health critic Elizabeth Witmer thundered at Smitherman repeatedly in the Legislature's daily question period.
Smitherman said Rouge Valley Health System hospitals in Ajax and Scarborough planning to cut up to 220 jobs and close 36 beds cannot expect a bailout because they have been poorly run and exceeded their budget.
"I don't prefer that in any circumstance," he said of the cuts. "But the alternative is to have a free-for-all where hospitals spend whatever they want and send the bill at the end of the year. The people's health system can't be sustained on that basis."
Smitherman said any nurses that lose their jobs at the Ajax and Pickering hospital or Scarborough Centenary can expect to find work nearby as the government hires 9,000 more nurses by 2011.
A report released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information last November showed Rouge Valley had the fifth-highest mortality rate among hospitals in the GTA.
"You don't solve an issue as serious as this by cutting the number of RNs on staff," said Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario. "You do the opposite."
NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the financial trouble hospitals are facing is in part due to millions of extra dollars going to build and expand hospitals with public-private partnerships that pay a premium to the builders.
"Less and less is going to patient care and more and more of the money is being siphoned off by profit-driven companies."
Ontario Health Coalition director Natalie Mehra criticized the level of secrecy surrounding the allocation of public money, especially since a large number of hospitals are threatened with deficits.
"This is really a regime of secrecy and top-down restructuring that is almost guaranteed to create significant problems in the health system for access and with no proper feedback group or evaluation," Mehra said. "It's really just bad governance."
Rouge Valley Health System is not alone in struggling to balance its books this spring to comply with zero-deficit legislation, but the answer to how many hospitals are in that situation is still unknown.
An Ontario Hospital Association survey conducted about a month ago as a pre-budget exercise revealed 75 Ontario hospitals forecast deficits for fiscal 2008/09. For fiscal 2009/10, that number increased to 103 of the 151 hospitals that responded to the survey.
Up to 19 hospitals in the GTA forecast deficits in 2008/09 and 26 in 2009/10.
The survey, which was not intended for public release, did not name individual hospitals or include the size of the forecasted deficits.
But the OHA said these projections were based on hospital funding that had been announced up to that point: increases of 2.4 per cent for 2008/09 and 2.1 per cent for 2009/10.
The provincial budget has since allocated a 6.1 per cent funding increase.
Since the Ministry of Health has not revealed how that money will be divvied up, hospitals continue negotiating while still somewhat in the dark.
"Our opinion is that there is not much point in projecting a deficit when you don't have all the information on what your revenues are going to be," said Tom Closson, CEO for the OHA.
This is the first time hospitals are negotiating two-year funding agreements with the newly created Local Health Integration Networks – agencies set up by the government to run health care on a regional basis and decide which services to fund and where. The "accountability agreements" were supposed to have been signed by the end of last month but Closson said all the LHINs have been granting hospitals deadline extensions as they wait for additional funding announcements.
He also said some negotiations involve allowing hospitals to operate with a deficit in 2008/09 so long as they balance the books by 2009/10.
Closson said the ministry must estimate by April 15 how much of the funding increases will go to growth, priority programs, inflation and other needs.
"I would hope by the end of April, at the latest, that the hospitals will have a clearer picture of whether there are additional funds that each one of them is going to receive," Closson said, adding that it could be June before all the accountability agreements are put into place.
Smitherman yesterday pointed to a recent peer review conducted by the Central East LHIN that concluded years of mismanagement and overspending had pushed Rouge Valley into its critical financial situation.
"There's room for improvement," said Smitherman, who has in previous years come through with year-end funds to help hospitals after weeks of rhetoric and wrangling.
"It wouldn't be fair to bail out Rouge Valley for activity that other hospitals are not involved in," he added. "I think the taxpayers are going to thank goodness, for once, there's a minister of health and a government that doesn't allow hospitals to operate on a blank cheque basis."
Ontario's health budget is now $40 billion and accounts for almost half of the government's spending on programs, with Premier Dalton McGuinty noting health spending is up 37 per cent since he took power in 2003.
Critics said Smitherman is ignoring the needs of hospitals in fast-growing areas.”

I say the Liberals are ignoring the health-care needs of hospitals in all areas.

Is that Jim Bradley’s Liberal government-run health monopoly cutting jobs and closing beds in hospitals? (yes, it is!)

Is that Jim Bradley’s Liberal government firing nurses – some of the supposed “5,000 nurses” whomt they supposedly hired?! (yes!)

Is that Jim Bradley's Liberal government saying that hospitals shouldn't be doing whatever it takes to provide health-care to Ontarians who need it?! (yes!)


If it is the "people's system" - as an ever-more-Soviet-sounding-Smitherman now calls his medicare monopoly - then why isn't Smitherman's "system" working FOR THE PEOPLE, George??



Smitherman was quoted using the phrase "free-for-all" in the above Apr.9, 2008 Star story - yet he said the same thing about the Niagara Health System in the St. Catharines Standard, Dec. 7, 2007, (See: Liberals ignore call for health-monopoly investigation), where he lectured:
"I do think the Niagara Health System likes to rely a little bit too much on the idea that it's all about money, and I think that's a fallacy. I think (that argument) can become a little too relied upon. What it kind of suggests is the only thing that's the answer to health-care woes is a fiscal free-for-all, spend whatever you want."

"Spend whatever you want"??

Smitherman's health monopoly is not providing us with what we NEED, let alone with what we want!

Smitherman thinks that the health-care monopoly -which he has controlled for five years - is on a spending "free-for-all" ?? Patients are dying in his Liberal health-monopoly's overcrowded emergency-room hallways! Where is all this flagrant spending occurring? The Ontario Auditor recently reported that the Liberals don't even have a clue of how many operating rooms they have - and many of them are closed or understaffed, anyway! We just had 190 surgery cancellations here in the NHS during March break!

Rouge Valley had the fifth-highest mortality rate in CIHI’s Nov. 2007 study.
But here in St. Catharines, our hospital, in Liberal MP Jim Bradley’s own riding, had the third-highest mortality-rate in Canada … and Jim Bradley has said nothing to explain that shocking and disgraceful revelation.
When the the Niagara Health System said in Dec. 2007 they needed more money – what answer did Bradley provide? Some Grit bafflegab about reviewing governance models? Talk about the futility of carefully re-arranging the deck chairs while holes in the big ship grow ever-larger! Whether it’s in Toronto or Niagara or Sarnia, the problems within Ontario’s Liberal health-monopoly are recurring, and systemic.

Bradley hides from answering questions about where our health-taxes are being spent, and whether they are being allocated efficiently and appropriately.

Smitherman said there will be no "blank cheque" to help hospitals facing staff and service cuts: in other words, Jim Bradley’s Liberals are forcing hospitals (in the "people's system", remember!) to cut service and ration treatment; to ‘live within their means’ – WHILE CONCURRENTLY DENYING CITIZENS THE LEGAL RIGHT TO PURCHASE THEIR OWN HEALTH-CARE IN ONTARIO.

On what basis is Smitherman sustaining his monopoly - on cuts to our coverage!?

And he thinks we're supposed to say "thank goodness"??!
Some of us will say "Go to Hell, Smitherman".
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State-run monopoly health-care should be illegal

R. Bobak wrote in "Forced dependence on government health care is immoral and should be illegal", (St. Catharines Standard, Mar.24, 2008):

"Re: Doctors could have performed surgeries at other hospitals, Health Ministry says, The Standard, March 13.

Just three months ago, Ontario auditor Jim McCarter reported serious concerns regarding surgery wait times in Ontario's Liberal-run health system that included about 40 per cent of hospital operating rooms not being used during nine weeks in the summer of 2006.

He also said surgical facilities are frequently closed on weekends and during the Christmas holidays and March Break.

The report found the operating rooms were closed because of vacation staffing schedules.

The audit also showed that, despite government focus on surgical wait times, Ontario has no idea how many operating rooms the province has, nor does it have adequate information on how many patients are waiting for specific surgeries.

Astoundingly, during the October 2007 election campaign, the Liberals downplayed that there were any problems with their health monopoly! But now, during March Break 2008, we hear that some 190 Niagara patients had their elective surgeries cancelled.

Didn't the Liberal government know or heed any of the warnings contained in the auditor's report? Did the Liberals warn any of these patients that the availability of their health care was subject to previously-reported systemic risks within their government-run monopoly? Did the government bother to arrange alternative care for these patients?

Can't these patients collectively and justifiably launch a class-action lawsuit against the Ministry of Health, alleging that the government knew, or reasonably should have known, that it would not be able to deliver upon the health-care promises it makes?

Not only were these Niagara patients preyed upon by the Liberal's bait-and-switch routine (they were promised health-care, but were given a health-care waiting list), but they were also prohibited by the very same Liberal government from arranging for their own health care should the government monopoly fail to deliver - as it often does.

That kind of forced dependence is immoral, and should be illegal.

Liberal "health-card" doesn't equal "health-care".

In “Doctors could have performed surgeries at other hospitals, Health Ministry says”, the St. Catharines Standard (Mar.13, 2008) reported that our local monopoly health-care franchise, the NHS (Niagara Health System), “announced a “20% reduction in the elective surgery caseload at the hospital from March 17 to May 2. This decision to perform fewer operations could affect as many as 190 patients waiting for a variety of pre-scheduled, non-emergency procedures.”

Interesting, isn't it, how the Ministry of Health also quickly assigned blame onto doctors, as the Standard reported, by claiming that the postponement list at the Greater Niagara General Hospital in Niagara Falls is longer than it should be because “surgeons “rejected” the idea of operating on their patients at other Niagara Hospitals.”

Forget about asking (or proving) whether any of the other NHS hospitals themselves were even prepared and able to assume this patient load…where specifically were these patients to go?? Welland? Pt. Colborne? St. Catharines? Grimsby? Hamilton? Toronto?

Why not just state the obvious and include Buffalo, then, as well. Or does Health Minister George Smitherman, whose system is so ready to shunt patients around, ‘reject’ that solution? Today, it’s elective surgery which the Liberals can’t deliver…what’ll it be tomorrow, a shortage of emergency surgeries?

Such blatant “fobbing off”, (as MPP Jim Bradley used to say), of the Health Ministry’s own policy failures under the stewardship of Captain Smitherman (or Mr. Medicare, as he fancies himself) reminds me of the attacks and doctor-bashing practised by the Ontario's David Peterson Liberal government in the 1980’s. (See: Can Jim Bradley explain why he "stood up and said 'I hate doctors'"?) I hope this Liberal 'blame the doctor' tactic isn’t rearing its ugly head again: it got the Liberals a lot of votes back then, didn’t it?

The Standard’s Mar.13, 2008 report also reminds me of the Ontario Auditor’s findings of just several months ago, which were already reporting indications of systemic closures and shortages through-out Ontario’s health-care monopoly, for extended periods of time.

In: Ombudsman must investigate Liberal health monopoly, (Dec.30, 2007) I wrote about this CTV report detailing the Ontario Auditor’s findings:

““Another concern raised in the annual audit surrounded wait times for surgeries. McCarter said about 40 per cent of hospital operating rooms were not being used during nine weeks in the summer of 2006. He also said surgical facilities are frequently closed on weekends and during the Christmas holidays and March Break. The report found vacation staffing schedules were behind the closed operating rooms. The audit also showed that despite government focus on surgical wait times, Ontario has no idea how many operating rooms the province has or adequate information on how many patients are waiting for specific surgeries.” [from report by Paul Bliss, CTV News, Dec. 12, 2007]
As if the above is not enough, add recent reports that the main hospital in Jim Bradley’s riding of St. Catharines has been found to have abnormally high patient death rates - which apparently wasn’t enough for Jim Bradley to immediately call for an inquiry.”

The Ontario Liberals and Premier Dalton McGuinty still have not responded to those findings. During the election, the Liberals pretended that there were no problems in their health-monopoly. (Let's not forget that the Auditor found health-care shortages occurred in 2006 during March break - and now, during March break 2008, it's happening again.)

Isn’t the experience of these 190 patients yet another concrete example of Liberal health-care duplicity, right in Niagara, where Liberal health-care promises made, were government promises not kept?

Can’t these 190 patients collectively launch a class action lawsuit against the Ministry of Health?

Did any of these patients actually have an enforceable contract with their government-run health-care system? Were they correct in assuming, or expecting, that they were actually going to receive the health-care promised by the McGuinty Liberal’s system? Or were they mistaken to assume that Liberal health-care rhetoric was the same thing as actual health-care provision? Was there some implict guarantee of receiving health-care from our government-run health monopoly? If so, is that a guarantee of anything at all?

What choice, recourse, or compensation was given to these patients? Aside from the patronizing political rhetoric, essentially these patients were told to lump it and wait. Yeah…you got an Ontario health card…but you got no Ontario health-care.

Shouldn’t the defendants be the Government of Ontario, and each Liberal MPP now sitting in that majority government? Should these politicians be personally shielded from accountability when their policies go haywire? Should these politicians be held harmless for not delivering what they promised? (Or is that, what they appeared to promise? In which case: they delivered exactly what they promised: an illusion of health-care, but not actual health-care!)

Should these politicians be immune to the hardships their policies cause patients? Weren’t these politicians (through their own government policies) negligent with providing necessary health-care; and, fraudulent, with their endless promises to do so? Taking on the burden, the mantle, of imposing and propagating a choice-denying health-monopoly, and then, failing to provide upon that obligation, is immoral, and should also be illegal.

Perhaps only after such a lawsuit is heard, can all Ontarians be armed with a specific legal definition next time any vote-buying politician of any stripe prefaces the phrase “health-care” with the vague assumptions embodied within words such as “universal”, or “two-tier”, or “single-payer”, or “timely”, or "covered", or “quality”, or “necessary”.

As it now stands, such loose, fluid, ambiguous “definitions” allow politicians incredible leeway to bamboozle us with their unaccountable, undeliverable health-care promises.

It’s one reason why Ontarians should pay attention to the health-care Charter challenges launched in 2007 by Mr. Lindsay McCreith and Ms. Shona Holmes. This may turn out to be Ontario’s health-care equivalent to Quebec’s Chaoulli decision.

As for these 190 inconvenienced Niagara patients – instead of not giving a shit, Mr. Smitherman should give them a chit which is redeemable in Quebec or the States so that they can get on with their treatment – with no mandatory grovelling at HSARB, either. Until Smitherman’s Liberal system can provide actual health-care when such care is demanded of it, this minister will have to set his rhetoric aside and allow these patients access to health-care elsewhere, where it is available. In any case, we are paying for this Liberal health-care fiasco, one way or another.

Doing our best not be bruised by the velvet fist of socialized medicare

[click photo to enlarge]

Here’s a typical headline and story similar to what Americans would also be seeing in their local papers if they finally are blessed with socialized, government-run, single-payer, universal health-care like we have in Ontario.

This article appeared in the St. Catharines Standard on Mar.12, 2008. and is nothing new for our system. In fact, unless you’re ill, no-one seems to care anymore: we are resigned to these constant delays and low-standard results from socialized medicare.

This headline, so typical in Canada, is a sample of the future the Americans have to look forward to if they pursue Ontario as a health-care role model to emulate. And if that happens in the States, where are Ontario’s Liberals going to send ill patients then?? At this time, the American system is there taking the pressure (and the accountability) off the Dalton McGuinty Liberal medicare-monopoly in Ontario. What will Liberals do when Buffalo no longer has room to accept Ontario patients, thanks to the spread of medical socialism down in the U.S.?

Liberal MPP Kim Craitor from Niagara Falls is still calling for a review of the NHS?!

What…again?! Craitor and Jim Bradley, another Liberal MPP from St. Catharines, were already through that phony charade months ago, as I’ve outlined several times.

How many times do these Liberal clowns keep re-announcing the same thing? They RUN THE HEALTH CARE system!! How is it possible that this Liberal government, after five years in power - and with a MAJORITY government - purports with frustration that they’re not satisfied with these results within the Niagara Health System? (As if these Liberals had no influence or bearing whatsoever on these results in the first place!) Who is accountable here?

The Liberal government has FULL control of the NHS! They can override the board and appoint a supervisor immediately – as they have ALREADY done in other failing health networks in monopoly-Ontario! They can then appoint the Ombudsman to investigate the NHS immediately!

The problem with that (for Liberals) is that Craitor and Bradley would also then have to reveal why the NHS was found by a Nov. 2007 CIHI study to have the third-highest death rate in Canada.

We’ve never heard Craitor, Bradley, or Liberal Premier McGuinty, or Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman give –or, more pointedly publicly even commit to finding out - the reasons behind that shocking revelation. We’ve also not heard them respond to the NHS request for more funding: are the hospital’s high death-rate and the surgery delays a result of Liberal funding decisions? Will we ever know?

This Liberal health-care monopoly charade just keeps on getting worse. Liberals like Craitor keep on spitting into the wind with their ‘Potemkin-village’ calls for some half-assed “operational” review of the NHS.

Having the Ministry of Health investigate itself will yield a report as phony as a three dollar bill.

The problem here is one of trust and accountability: there is none. This Liberal-run health system has no competition, no checks, no balances. We have no idea about the cost-effectiveness or appropriateness of any random Liberal health-care funding allocation. We just have to take their word for it, and accept what's handed out to us: legally, we have no alternatives.

The Liberals, in my opinion, can’t be trusted as the sole-distributors of health-care in Ontario, simply because they are held-harmless and unaccountable for the blow-back to patients caused by their Liberal health care duplicity. No criminal or civil charges will hold anyone to blame. The Liberals view their re-election as a pass to wreak more monopoly havoc upon Ontario patients. The Liberals believe only they have a divine right to spend the some-38 billion dollars of our health-care tax money.

Those 190 delayed patients (this just in Niagara; who knows how many others got cancelled today in the rest of Ontario…and, then, tomorrow’s yet another day…and another delay…) were inconvenienced and suffered on behalf of a phony health system propagated by the McGuinty government.

When a hospital spokeswoman said that “We fully recognize and appreciate the impact that any type of postponement has on our patients…” how contrite is that? How acceptable is that? Here’s a way for you to really “recognize” that you have a big problem: getting sued for your failure to provide health care services promised by the Liberal government.

There’s no other way (is there?) to hold these Liberal politicians accountable for their health care monopoly mess. What choice do we have: suffer and wait and put up with it; sue your local Liberal franchise monopoly representative, or go to Buffalo for your health care (which could soon also become a non-option). We have no “contract” to hold the Liberals to. Their political health-care posturing has the freedom of non-accountability, as we are seeing at the NHS. No one’s to blame, right? It’s “the system” vaguely to be blamed, right…NEVER any specific Liberal politician! The 'virtual' promises of the medicare salespeople are just that: virtual, not actually 'literal', or even enforceable.

“We’re doing our best…” the hospitals say. Well, they are put into an untenable and unwinnable position by the unrealistic monopoly-health-care politics of the Liberals. This is what socialized medicare looks like folks: this is the bruising we get from the velvet fist of Tommy Douglas.

Our healthcare system needs to offer more choices

This from R. Bobak (St. Catharines Standard, Jan.30, 2007):

"Re: "Health care needs to be more user-friendly", The Standard, Jan. 5.

It is fascinating that former NDP deputy health minister (and medical-school enrolment cutter) Michael Decter is still peddling his meddling health-care advice. Is the "difference between getting faster care or not" really linked to patient ignorance in navigating our health-care system? And here I thought the problem was a systemic failure of our bloated, unresponsive monopoly. Nah, better to blame the patient.

On the same day as Decter's column, The Standard's front-page story read: Pressures mount for NHS: Bed shortage forces health system to postpone some elective surgeries. Ironically, in 2004 Decter told Osprey Media's James Wallace: "Demand for hospital beds is really in decline. There is not a case to build more hospital beds."

What's worrisome is Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman gushed that Decter "knows a lot about this stuff...I think it's really important that we take all of his advice." Sure, if you want our taxes to yield doctor shortages, bed shortages and scaled-down coverage! Is that the Liberals' intent? Well, The Standard's Sept. 30, 2006 story, More hospital beds not in the cards: premier reveals the Grits' ideological aim.

I wonder how Decter interprets Suzanne Aucoin's treacherous voyage on the S.S. Smitherman: will her experience be trivialized as just an obscure anomaly, or is it indicative of a system rotten at its core? Where did all the "navigation" leave her, but high and dry?

We need a system where crying out for Smitherman to save the day would not be the sole option, as it sadly is now. We need less Smitherman, more choice. We need to supplant OHIP's restrictive, protected-turf model with a multi-payer/provider model. We need to put an end to bureaucrats telling us what we can't do to pursue our healthcare needs."

Doctor shortage in Liberal-run Ontario "may turn into a killer"

This is from James Wallace, St. Catharines Standard (Nov.10, 2007):


"Doctor shortage is trending the wrong way; Massive health spending has done little to give more Ontarians a doctor

Disturbing signs this week that Ontario's doctor shortage, a chronic disorder in this province for years, may turn into a killer.
Having been forced for years to cope with an ongoing shortage of family physicians, the president of the Ontario Medical Associations suggests patients should now brace for another "wave" of shortages among specialists.
Not only should patients expect to contend with ongoing waits to see heart, geriatric, cancer and other specialists, but current trends suggest fewer specialists will practice here over the next several years.
"The (government) focus generally has been on primary care because that's the point of first entrance for patients but in fact now the backup system and safety net of secondary care and specialist care is extremely challenged," OMA president Dr. Janice Willett told Osprey News.
"The fact of the matter is the second wave and the shortage of specialists is going to become more and more obvious to the public," Willett said.
From a practical perspective, that means patients increasingly will wait longer to see a cardiovascular surgeon, oncologist, psychiatrist or other in-demand specialist.
It's hardly a stretch to suppose patients will fall through the cracks, grow gravely ill or even die waiting for diagnosis and treatment as that already happens and is a source of growing frustration among clinicians.
As is ever the case with government, money isn't the issue.
The Ontario government over the past five years has increased health-care spending by a staggering $10 billion. Doctors got a $1-billion pay hike during their last round of negotiations with the province, in part to make physician compensation competitive with other jurisdictions, help attract new doctors and retain existing ones.
Hospitals have been offered barrels of cash to reduce waits by pushing more patients through surgeries and procedures.
The government has hired thousands of new nurses, increased medical school spaces, doubled training to allow more foreign doctors to practice here and created new family health teams in order to expand patient access to doctors.
But five years of spending has removed just 200,000 "orphan" patients from the list of Ontarians without a doctor.
More than a million Ontarians, including 130,000 children, still can't find a family doctor.
These patients and their families pay the burdensome taxes required by government in this province, including Dalton McGuinty's health-care tax.
But instead of the universal access to health they are paying for, these orphans often can't get a prescription for a child's ear infection without a trip to the hospital or an overcrowded walk-in clinic.
Try arranging an annual physical if you don't have a doctor, or get an appointment with a specialist if you have a specific or worrying concern.
However, the prospect of significant improvement appears muddy.
New statistics released from the Canadian Institute for Health Information show Ontario's doctor shortage is getting worse.
There were 21,735 family doctors and specialists in the province in 2002 and 22,141 at the end of last year - a positive difference of 406.
However, the doctor population in this province actually fell by 96 physicians in 2006 and the number of doctors leaving Ontario for other provinces has tripled over the past couple of years.
We are trending in the wrong direction.
Ontario's health ministry reasonably responds that their initiatives are just beginning to pay off, arguing for example that 337 medical students will graduate this year.
The problem, however, as Willett explains it, are the "holes in the bucket" the province is trying to fill.
Not only are there leaks, many new grads will leave the province for instance, but the bucket itself is getting bigger.
Ontario's population is also growing faster than the growth rate for new doctors and getting older, meaning more people increasingly need more medical care.
At the same time, doctors are getting older and some 2,500 family practitioners and specialists - about 10 per cent of the total - are 55 or older.
The problem isn't that government is failing to act, rather that it may have, in the estimation of the OMA, underestimated the scope of the problem.
It's been bad enough that so many don't get what they pay for, now the health of too many, needlessly, may be endangered.
"The risk for us all is that the safety net that's been tenuously held together by health-care professionals breaks," Willett said. "It does break already on a daily basis but it will really break in a major way if nothing done." “
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Here’s yet another story about Ontario's doctor shortage. Has our local MPP Jim Bradley, the champion of state-run Ontario healthcare, read this story, or the others? You know, new Transportation Minister Jim Bradley, the St. Catharines MPP who in a Jan.5, 1991 Toronto Globe and Mail story by Michael Valpy was quoted saying he hates doctors? Un-flicking-real.

We just went through a provincial election a month ago, on Oct.10, 2007, where hardly a peep came from the Liberals about healthcare. This doctor shortage, along with our deteriorating health monopoly, didn't just happen last week. McGuinty’s Liberals have known about the plight of our single-payer health system for years…haven't they??

Ontario Liberals failed to increase number of doctors

This story by James Wallace, St. Catharines Standard, Nov.9, 2007:

"OMA warns of doctor drain. Ontario's doctor shortage is growing and the province will face a "second wave" of physician shortages - among specialists - over the next several years, says the head of the Ontario Medical Association.
New statistics reported by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) show that Ontario not only failed to increase its doctor population last year, it actually lost 96 physicians and for the past two years has seen a growing number of doctors move to other provinces.
This province now has the eighth worst doctor-patient ratio in the country, CIHI found.
"Unless we really come up with some innovative solutions and start reversing this trend pretty quickly, I think we're going to lose health professionals' confidence, Ontario Medical Association president Dr. Janice Willett told Sun Media.
"It's not all doom and gloom but if we keep the status quo, (the system) will be broken," Willett predicted.
Ontario already has a population of more than a million "orphan" patients, including 130,000 children without a doctor.
Willett said those numbers will grow unless the shortage is addressed and patients increasingly will struggle to find family doctors and especially specialists in areas ranging from heart surgery to cancer and pediatric care, particularly in cities like Toronto and Ottawa with large speciality hospitals.
That next wave in Ontario's doctor shortage is just beginning to be felt with growing waits for appointments with specialists.
"I think probably people underestimated how deep this hole is and (how big) the second wave is," Willett said.
"We've had a lot of discussion about people without family doctors," she said. "So we plugged up some holes in the bucket on primary care.
"Now we still need to do more on that but the fact of the matter is the second wave and the shortage of specialists is going to become more and more obvious to the public."
David Spencer, a spokesman for Health Minister George Smitherman, called the CIHI numbers "helpful" but said provincial estimates show Ontario's doctor supply increased 7.9 per cent since 2002 because of provincial measures to increase medical school spaces, double training for international graduates and create new family health teams.
The government expects doctor numbers to increase significantly over the next few years as those initiatives bear fruit, Spencer said.
"That's not to say we're satisfied with the numbers," he said. "There's still a lot of progress to be made."
However, the numbers are daunting.
Ontario is already short some 2,000 physicians, about half of those specialists.
A growing number of doctors - established ones, new graduates and specialists - are leaving the province for other jurisdictions faster than they can be replaced.
Ontario's population growth is also outpacing physician supply.
The overall number of physicians in Ontario has increased just 1.9 per cent in the past five years while the province's population increased by 4.6 per cent over the same period.
"The trend since 2000 has certainly been concerning," Willett said. "When you look at us in 2000 and 1999 we were net importers (of doctors)."
As a consequence, only Saskatchewan and Prince Edward Island now have a worst doctor-patient ratio than Ontario.
At just 174 doctors per 100,000 people, this province is significantly behind Nova Scotia, which is tops in the country with 219 doctors per 100,000 residents.
But migration isn't the only cause of this province's doctor drain. Physicians are leaving or choosing not to come to Ontario for other reasons including concerns over poor access to medical tests and facilities, medical bureaucracy, competitive pay scales and burnout. Ontario has 2,500 doctors in practice aged 55 and older and as that group begins to retire, it will also exacerbate the province's doctor shortage.
Meanwhile, doctors are increasingly burdened by bureaucracy that takes time away from patients, Willett said.
The government has been working for years on creating new electronic health records, which have been used elsewhere to reduce red tape and improve patient safety, but in the recent election campaign said it will take until 2015 to deliver on the promise.
"That was certainly disappointing for us to hear," Willett said.. "If what they're telling us is we've got the status quo until 2015 then we've got a whole lot of work to figure out how to fix the status quo."
The province also needs to expand its plans for family health teams and ensure doctors fees, currently seventh in the country, are more competitive, she said.
The OMA fears Ontario's current health care system increasingly is creating "two-tier" patients and suggests the government's promise to find doctors for half of the one million patients without physicians may be unrealistic.
"Not if we keep doing things the way we are doing it," Willett said. "It's going to take some real changes."
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Doctor shortage! Surprise! Jim Bradley's probable reaction, as an MPP for 30 years : "Doctor shortage...Whaaa? Since when? Liberal promises "may be unrealistic"... huh?? "Failed to increase"...but...oh, I know: Blame Harris!" Of course, we'll never know Bradley's reaction, since there never seem to be stories asking for Bradley's comment to such "news". There is fawning, or there is usually nothing.
..."if we keep the status-quo (the system) will be broken" Willett predicted. Yet no word from status-quo supporter, Jim Bradley. Shame, Jim. How many patients will have to suffer under your restrictive, failing health policies?