TORONTO \u2014 Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Health has tasked hospitals struggling with deficits to come up with a three-year plan to balance their budgets, and service cuts and bed closures do not appear to be off the table for extreme cases.<\/p>\n
The Ontario Hospital Association has said that hospitals ended last year $360 million in the red and need an additional $1 billion in funding this year to keep pace with population growth and inflation.<\/p>\n
However, government guidance to hospitals on the balanced budget plans, obtained by The Canadian Press, suggests belt tightening is on the way. <\/p>\n
For the financial planning exercise, hospitals were told to assume annual funding increases of two per cent \u2014 half of what they have received in the past three years. The parameters are not confirmation of funding intent, the government says in the document, but the hospital sector is reading the tea leaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was quite clear to us when the Ontario budget was handed down after the general election that the province was no longer in a position to meet our full revenue needs as a sector for the current fiscal year,\u201d said Ontario Hospital Association president and CEO Anthony Dale.<\/p>\n
\u201c(This budgeting exercise) is a prudent thing to do, given the realities facing the province today, which is our economy is under direct threat from the trade war initiated by the United States. It\u2019s quite clear, based on the report of several weeks ago from the financial accountability officer, that Ontario faces a very large deficit stemming in part from that trade war.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FAO projected that impacts of the tariffs will have Ontario in deficit at least until 2030, and that the province\u2019s plan to balance in 2027-28 is based in part on \u201csignificantly lower\u201d program spending growth.<\/p>\n
Hospitals were told that any \u201clow risk\u201d cost-saving moves, with \u201cno or minimal clinical front-line reductions, achieved primarily via attrition,\u201d should be implemented immediately. Low-risk examples include looking for more non-ministry revenue, optimizing the use of operating rooms, and consolidating services across sites of a hospital network where it has little or no impact on patient access.<\/p>\n
Any potential plans that are deemed high risk would be assessed by regional and provincial planning tables. That would include measures that do have service impacts for patients, and should only be considered if all lower-risk options are exhausted, the guidance says.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaintaining patient access to hospital services is a top priority for the Ministry of Health,\u201d the government writes in the document.<\/p>\n
\u201cService changes and\/or reductions are within the context of the hospital\u2019s local and regional environments, with consideration for regional solutions that could result in better outcomes, access, continuity of care and patient experience. Any service reductions and bed closures should be clearly communicated in the plan and will only be considered when there is a case where it would be an opportunity to provide services more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim Vine, president and CEO of the North Shore Health Network, with sites in northern Ontario, said this planning process has been unorthodox and has him concerned.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the growing population of Ontario and demands of an aging population, I worry that on the current trajectory Ontarians will have fewer health services available to them in 12 months\u2019 time,\u201d he wrote in a statement. \u201cAnd even more difficulty accessing them.\u201d <\/p>\n
Lee Fairclough, the Liberals\u2019 hospitals critic and a former hospital president, said hospitals have already been finding efficiencies for decades and have very little in the way of \u201clow risk\u201d moves to make.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s always good to do due diligence around your budgeting and how you\u2019re spending and are we using taxpayer money to the very best purpose,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I feel that they are ignoring the way that these deficits have accumulated over the last several years…Hospitals in Ontario are the most efficient by far in the country, so I\u2019m not sure they\u2019re going to get to the result that they want here.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones did not directly answer how many hospitals contemplated service reductions in their balanced budget proposals, which were submitted last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not only appropriate, but responsible for the government to ask hospitals to plan for long-term stability,\u201d Jackson Jacobs wrote. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis ensures that each community\u2019s needs are reflected in the province\u2019s broader health system planning as we continue to strengthen and modernize hospital care across Ontario.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kevin Smith, the president and CEO of the University Health Network, said he doesn\u2019t believe this government will cut access to care.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one has given anyone permission to reduce clinical care, but I feel as though it was a, \u2018How bad could this look if we had a really, really cataclysmic economic circumstance…what would that look like?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s different, frankly, than what we\u2019d done pre-COVID annually.\u201d <\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n
Allison Jones, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 Ontario\u2019s Ministry of Health has tasked hospitals struggling with deficits to come up with a three-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[45,49,48,46,84,392,11867,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-230283","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-ontario-quebec","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}