health

Saturday August 27, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 27, 2022

Not the new and improved Doug Ford …

August 19, 2022

At minimum, the provincial government has a massive optics and communication problem around its new initiative to try and free up badly needed acute care beds.

By now we all know the health-care crisis is real. And a significant part of the situation is a result of people who need alternate levels of care occupying acute care beds. Give Doug Ford and friends credit for finally trying to do something about it.

But is what they’re doing the right thing?

January 27, 2021

New legislation would allow hospital patients to be transferred to a temporary long-term care home without their consent while they await a bed in their preferred facility. The interim LTC facility would not necessarily be in their community. The law will not physically force patients to move, but it’s not at all clear what will happen if they don’t.

LTC Minister Paul Calandra says people should “absolutely” be charged a fee if they won’t move, but he won’t say how much. It could be $62 per day, or it could be much more. How much more? How far away might people be moved? The government either doesn’t know or isn’t saying, and it is not allowing debate or public input into the new law. This is not the new and consultation-friendly Doug Ford people thought they were voting for. (Hamilton Spectator editorial) 

 

Saturday August 20, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 20, 2022

Ambulance use in Ontario has grown far faster than population, study finds

A new study finds ambulance use in Ontario increased significantly in the years leading up to the pandemic, outpacing the growth in both population and hospital emergency room visits by other means. 

September 15, 2021

The study was led by researchers at Hamilton’s McMaster University and it looked at the yearly numbers of patients transported by ambulance paramedics to hospital emergency rooms across Ontario from 2010 to 2019. 

It found a 38.3 per cent increase in the number of ambulance patient transports to ERs over the decade, an increase four times larger than the province’s 9.6 per cent population growth over the same period. 

“What our work points to is that this current model of [emergency department] transports is likely unsustainable for the province,” said Ryan Strum, the lead researcher for the paper and a PhD student at McMaster who also works as a paramedic.

Friday August 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 19, 2022

Ontario to fund more private clinic surgeries, send patients to temporary LTCs to ease health-care pressures

August 3, 2022

Ontario is hoping to ease health-care pressures by increasing publicly covered surgeries at private clinics, waiving the exam and registration fees for internationally trained nurses, and sending patients waiting for a long-term care bed to a home not of their choosing.

On Thursday, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced a plan that aims to hire more health professionals, free up hospital beds and reduce surgical wait lists. The plan comes as nursing staff shortages have seen emergency departments across the province close throughout the summer for hours or days at a time.

On long-term care, the government plans to introduce legislation today that will allow patients awaiting a bed to be transferred to a “temporary” home while they await space in their preferred home. It’s also taking 300 beds that had been used for COVID-19 isolation and making them available for people on wait lists, and says there is a potential to do that with 1,000 more beds within six months.

Wednesday April 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 13, 2022

Just how bad is COVID-19’s sixth wave?

Hamilton’s public school board is writing a letter to the provincial government asking for the now-lifted mask mandate to be restored. Halton is back to having outbreaks at long-term-care facilities and at least one Haldimand-Norfolk LTC facility is back to restricting visitors, again due to COVID.

July 25, 2020

Further afield, some schools in the London area are reverting to online learning because their staff and student ranks are so hard hit. And one hospital in Waterloo Region is closing its emergency room overnight because it no longer has staff to keep it open.

Anecdotally, more and more of us are saying we now see more COVID among our families, friends and networks than at any other time during the pandemic. And, most ominously, hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths are climbing — again.

Wednesday February 16, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 16, 2022

Ford’s pandemic timing is off

October 28, 2021

No question, on the COVID-19 front, things are looking up. Most, if not all, the signs and indicators point toward things brightening as spring arrives.

That said, the Ontario government’s timing on easing pandemic restrictions is, to say the least, questionable. It is not wrong for Premier Ford to declare the decline of COVID — the numbers bear him out on that. But timing is everything, and announcing the early lifting of many restrictions this week, while Ottawa is still in the grips of an illegal occupation, leaves a bad smell.

January 26, 2022

Ford insists that the timing has nothing to do with ongoing trucker protests. Maybe not, but the optics are far from good. You can bet that his haste to lift restrictions will be seen by many in the protest movement as a victory, as in, look what we’ve been able to accomplish — we’ve got the premier on the run.

In other words, the perception in many quarters will be that holding Ottawa citizens, and the Windsor Ambassador Bridge, hostage paid off.

The thing is, had Ford held off just another week, there is a good chance the Ottawa occupation would be over or nearly over. The premier’s timing, as well as the optics here, are not a good look for Ontarians. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)