Ontario hospitals sound the alarm amid low funds and aging population

Hospitals across the province are sounding the alarm that they are low on space and funding.

Earlier this month, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) — a collective of 154 hospitals throughout the province — released a statement about the ongoing scarcity of provincial funding to keep care centres operating at top capacity.

A key point raised by authorities within the OHA was that hospital operating costs continue to rise by six per cent annually, further hindered by Ontario’s aging population and the ongoing devastation of inflation.

Representatives did note, however, that while the provincial government has thrown them an annual lifeline of a four percent funding increase, the remaining $1 billion deficit keeps them treading water.

“Healthcare is becoming more complex, and we have an older population, which means that there are more and more complicated methods of treatment becoming common. We are also seeing higher degrees of hospital use because of a lack of access to community services — people are essentially stuck going to a hospital because they don’t have access to a general practitioner,” Melissa Prokopy, VP for Policy and Advocacy with the OHA, told INsauga.com.

As a byproduct of a system buckling under its own weight, Prokopy further advocated for a “dramatically different” approach to hospital funding strategies.

“From the OHA’s perspective, we appreciate that this isn’t just about health care, and that it’s a broader conversation around economic stability that is happening. I think we understand as a sector that we can roll up our sleeves and say to the government, ‘we can lead through this difficult time,’” says Prokopy.

INsauga.com reached out to the province to gain insight into potential steps tied to the OHA statement relayed to the Ministry of Finance.

“The claims made in this release are misguided. Ontario is proud to have one of the largest publicly funded healthcare systems in the world, with the largest healthcare workforce in Canada, and we continue to make record investments in our healthcare system,” said press secretary for the Minister of Health, Ema Popovic, in an email to INsauga.com.

Popvic stated that, according to internal numbers, this year alone, the province has already supplied $91 billion to the provincial hospital sector.

Additionally, provincial health authorities noted that they have a secondary $60 billion plan for healthcare infrastructure and have already over 100,000 new nurses and nearly 20,000 physicians since 2018.

“We continue to work closely with Ontario’s hospitals and hospital partners, including the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA), as more connected, convenient care in every corner of the province, always ensuring that people are accessing the care they need with their OHIP card, never their credit card,” added Popvic.

However, even with provincial receipts, the OHA and its administrators are not feeling as secure as they could be, as things have changed drastically in recent years, as issues within Ontario hospitals are not unilateral.

“Operational costs are rising, let’s say by roughly 6 per cent per year, and funding is approximately 4 per cent — that’s pretty universal for most hospitals, with some deviations. But we need to think about this more broadly. There are different problems in rural communities than there are in larger hospitals; there is no one problem felt by just one kind of community,” says Prokopy.

To create a system where the province feels like it’s not throwing good money after bad, and where provincial hospitals feel they are being heard, Pokopy notes that a mass diagnosis of structural issues on a case-by-case basis needs be applied.

Especially, as people in Ontario continue to use ERs as a substitute for a family doctor, due to a lack of access to one, and as the province’s population continues to age and develop complex medical needs.

This all has to be done, however, according to Prokopy, in a way that ensures the system doesn’t collapse while tweaks are being made within it.

As for an initial outline, the OHA has drafted the Hospital Sector Stabilization Plan (HSSP), which they raised to the Ministry of Finance during pre-budget hearings.

“Any core decisions need to be made in a way that will continue to prioritize access; that’s how it is always going to be for hospitals. The HSSP, even as an exercise, has already shown that beyond initial cost-saving measures, there are going to be some difficult choices,” says Prokopy.

As for what these tough choices will be, if the province plays ball with the OHA in any future budget drafts, there will likely be resource reallocation strategies, which means hospitals will have to take stock of their inventory (staff, equipment, and medicine) and make some tough choices as to what goes where.

“There are no easy choices ahead. Hospitals will also need to prioritize, make trade-off decisions, and above all, take action to operate with the more limited resources that are available,” said OHA president Anothy Dale in an official statement.

Until then, administrators within the OHA are keenly aware that the province has the economic hurdle of the ongoing trade war impacting the provincial pocketbook, leaving people like Prokopy keenly aware of the order of priority and where hospitals fall within the pecking order.

“We appreciate the difficult decisions that are going to be made over the next couple of years, and that comes with an acceptance and acknowledgement of what is happening with the U.S.”