They say that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over. That makes sense. Reading the same thing over and over is certainly driving me insane.
And yet, here we go again — on Wednesday, the Ontario government announced a $90-million infusion into the health-care system. This money, described by the government as “urgent action,” is intended to get more hospital beds open and staffed in time for the coming flu season. Last year’s flu was particularly bad, and strained Ontario’s already overburdened hospitals. The government wants to get out ahead of it this year.
The $90 million is intended to open (or keep open) 1,100 beds, including several hundred already operating on an ad hoc basis since funded by the previous Liberal government. This is a good idea. But the better part of the announcement is that the Ontario government seems to be forging ahead with its campaign pledge to open 15,000 long-term care (LTC) beds in the province. The first phase, announced today, is for 6,000 beds.
WATCH: Doug Ford announces 6K new long-term care beds across Ontario
As always for a government announcement, there’s a lot that’s unclear. Whether these funds are “new” funds or monies already announced wasn’t specified. There’s no timeline on when the thousands of LTC beds will be ready. The opposition parties are grumbling their usual grumbles. But make no mistake. These are good steps to be taking.
And make no mistake on this, either: this has been talked about before. At length. Ad nauseam.
Get weekly health news
The problem isn’t hard to grasp — our primary care hospitals get most of the funding and public attention (and media attention, too!). These are the facilities where you go when injured or sick, in hopes of getting better. But those hospitals are only part of the broader health-care system. What happens to a patient when they’re no longer sick or injured?
Perhaps they’ve recovered and are capable of caring for themselves, or have relatives who’ll provide private care, or the financial resources to hire their own help. In those cases, there’s no problem. But many patients, after an illness or injury, are ready to leave a primary care hospital but not yet ready to be fully released.
In some cases, they never will be, sadly, and can be sent to an LTC bed, often for the rest of their lives. This is a sad outcome for the patient, but an efficient outcome for the system — an LTC bed costs roughly a fifth per patient a day as a primary care bed.
For those patients who are not yet ready to go home but eventually will be, they can go to a rehabilitation hospital to recover until ready for release. This too is healthy for the system — a rehab hospital bed is half the cost of a primary care bed.
Those numbers are approximate, of course, as every patient’s needs are different. There’s no typical case. But at least in aggregate, those are the costs.
Yet, we still have thousands of patients in primary care beds — every day, including right now — who are physically able to be transferred to an LTC or rehab bed, but can’t be, because none are available.
A lack of beds in our LTC facilities and rehab hospitals essentially strands patients in expensive primary care hospitals that they don’t need to be in. And this ties that bed up, keeping it from going to someone who needs it.
The numbers are significant — in a recent press release, the Ontario Hospital Association noted that in July of this past summer, 15 per cent of beds in Ontario hospitals were taken up by patients who didn’t need to be in them, but had nowhere else to go.
This is why patients end up in halls. This is why chapels and meeting rooms are converted into care wards. This is why our hospitals chronically run at more than 100 per cent of their theoretical patient capacity.
These problems aren’t new. The solution — more LTC and rehab beds — is obvious.
The previous Ontario government got the ball rolling on addressing this problem by reactivating some mothballed hospital facilities it had yet to sell off. That’s why the Liberals are now grumbling that the Ford government is just ripping off their plan.
But this misses the point. The issue here isn’t which party started the process, it’s whether or not any of them will see it through.
WATCH: Ford government set to promise more money to Ontario’s health care system
Time is not on our side. An aging population is only going to further burden our health-care system. Longer life spans will mean fewer people politely dying at home in their sleep before they need an LTC bed. This is coming. We know it is.
And we talk and talk and talk about it, but we don’t fix it. Ford’s government is moving in the right direction, but good starts don’t count. We need all 15,000 beds, now. And by the time we have them, we’ll no doubt need more.
And I’ll still be reading and writing about it then, too, probably. Some things never change.
Matt Gurney is host of The Exchange with Matt Gurney on Global News Radio 640 Toronto and a columnist for Global News.
Comments