Funding Crisis at The Ottawa Hospital

Well, that's not too thrilling. The Ottawa Hospital prepared to cut nursing staff. Bearing in mind that at current strength nurses are overworked. And if these cuts do take place, 70 nursing jobs will be lost and 120 current vacancies unfilled. That's a whole whack of jobs. It may not sound like much, given that there are 3,900 registered nurses with the hospital, but the president of the Ontario Nurses Association claims that amounts to 300,000 hours of lost nursing care to patients.

So we're looking at longer emergency care delays, and the same for elective surgery. Seems the hospital spokesperson for human resources is seeking to downplay the process, reassuring the public. How be reassured with 133 positions being eliminated? "Under the current economic circumstances, hospitals, like every other sector, must provide responsible stewardship of scarce public resources. That is why certain vacancies have been closed."

Sounds very responsible. Little wonder a recent Ipsos Reid survey paid for by the Canadian Medical Association indicates 83% of Canadians find themselves with a common concern, that health-care programs that all Ontarians rely upon will suffer if the deficit reduction attempt relies too heavily on cutting costs and services to the public. The federal government claims it has no intention in its new budget of decreasing transfer payments for health care to the provinces.

Otherwise, it sounds like a reprise of former Liberal governments' cost-cutting to arm wrestle the-then deficit down to manageable proportions. This time the decision-making coming from the provincial government. "We're still trying to recover from some of the bad decision s that were made in the 1990s and health human resources is the best example I can give of that", according to the current president of the Canadian Medical Association.

Sure, Canadians are worried about the rising deficit and that miserably large debt. Sure, we aren't thrilled with the thought that if it isn't controlled and diminished the burden will hang heavily into the future. But that same poll found 84% of respondents surveyed are heartily opposed to lowering health-care spending because of the deficit.

The Ottawa Hospital faces an operating cost shortfall of $19-million, if it receives a 2% funding increase from the province, as should happen. The current operating budget of $970-million has proven to be slightly under what annual rising costs represent. The end result, given a transfer cut, will be already-stressed nursing staff unable to cope with an increased work load. And that's when errors are made.

Paramedical staff representing therapists most of whom work with patients in the mental-health program will also be impacted. That more hospital beds will be phased out as well, all bode ill for the future of Ottawa's hospitals in their ability to offer city residents the best possible care. That's nothing short of alarming, particularly given the already-fragile state our medical/hospital care is in.

We have the former Conservative government of Mike Harris, with his closing of provincial hospitals and amalgamation of others under his 'common sense revolution' to thank for the mess our hospitals now find themselves in. And now we can look forward to our current Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty to thank for compounding the mess.