Hospital administrators aren't to blame for ongoing cuts to staff and services at North Bay and other hospitals across Ontario says the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.
The group puts the blame on successive Ontario Liberal health ministers.
"Since the Liberals were elected over a dozen years ago, funding for hospitals has fallen compared to other provinces. In the last several years, Ontario hospital funding has lagged well behind the cost pressures associated with aging, population, and inflation. This too low funding – well under the hospitals’ real operating costs – has resulted in serious cuts to staff and services at North Bay Regional Health Centre and many other hospitals province-wide. That’s the root of blame for hospital staffing and program cuts,” says union president Michael Hurley.
"Provincial funding at its current levels has meant that in the last five years alone, North Bay Regional Health Centre has cut $20,735,000. The 2016 provincial budget gives hospitals a 1% increase. However costs, driven by drugs and medical technologies will be closer to 4%, so another round of cuts is coming," warns Hurley.
North Bay’s hospital, built as a private public partnership (P3) facility is more expensive to operate than a typical hospital, Hurley says.
During the 2003 election, the provincial Liberal’s promised to cancel the North Bay P3 and to build the hospital as a publicly owned entity. “They reneged on that promise and yet have provided no special support for the significantly higher costs of this model,” says Hurley.
