The Trillium<\/a>, a Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\nThe Ford government says it is addressing capacity pressures inside hospitals, even as a new report finds a dramatic increase in emergency department wait times is putting patients at risk.<\/p>\n
The new research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) compared the situation inside hospital ERs in 2020\/21 to 2024\/25.<\/p>\n
The study compared the 90th percentile wait times \u2014 the time at which 90 per cent of patients waited less, and 90 per cent waited longer. It found a 90th percentile wait time of 4.5 hours for an initial physician assessment; that\u2019s up from 2.7 hours, a 67 per cent increase in five years, the CCPA found.<\/p>\n
It found a 90th percentile wait of 44 hours to be admitted to an inpatient bed, up from 29 hours, a 52 per cent increase in five years, according to the report.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe longer patients languish in the emergency department waiting to be admitted, the risks of deteriorating health status and poorer outcomes increase,\u201d said Andrew Longhurst, a senior researcher at the CCPA.<\/p>\n
When asked if it\u2019s acceptable that ER wait times are increasing, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said low-acuity visits are falling, suggesting the government\u2019s efforts to divert non-urgent cases to community settings like primary care and pharmacies is having an impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen individuals make decisions not to go to emergency departments because they have those other opportunities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the government announced it is once again expanding pharmacist powers, adding five common ailments to the 19 they are already allowed to treat.<\/p>\n
Jones said 2.4 million people have accessed the service since they launched it two years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt really is that convenience of patients knowing that they don\u2019t only and always have to go to the emergency department, they can go to their primary care providers, in some cases, they can go to their local community pharmacies.\u201d<\/p>\n
But critics believe that is an admission that hospitals can\u2019t keep up.<\/p>\n
“Should we be looking at other health care professionals and their scope of practice? Absolutely. But at the end of the day it’s not gonna solve the problem we have,” said NDP Leader Marit Stiles. “The minister of health doesn\u2019t want to address that, wants to pretend everything is A-OK, and the reality is people in Ontario are sicker, they are waiting longer to get the health care they need, they are being treated in hospital hallways and storage closets,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\n\u00a0
\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Majority of Ontario hospitals in the red<\/p>\n
The CCPA also noted that more than 70 per cent of Ontario hospitals are forecasting budget deficits to end the 2025-26 fiscal year, up from 55 per cent in 2024-25, with smaller and rural hospitals hit the hardest, raising concerns about their ongoing financial sustainability.<\/p>\n
Green Leader Mike Schreiner said when the majority of Ontario hospitals are \u201ctaking out a line of credit just to meet payroll, you have a major problem the government is failing to address.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said hospitals are currently on a three-year path to balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHospitals are being asked \u2026 what is your plan for your individual hospital corporation to make sure the money that is being funnelled through \u2026 is actually going to be spent on front-line patient care?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t seen any evidence to indicate that the money isn\u2019t flowing to where it\u2019s needed,\u201d Longhurst said. \u201cThe issue is that there is just not enough funding all around, and it\u2019s uneven in terms of the size of hospital and their capacity to sustain multiple years of deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The government invested an additional $1.1 billion in hospital funding in this year\u2019s budget, up four per cent from last year. The Ontario Hospital Association has said that still leaves a $1-billion gap, forcing them to make cuts that could affect front-line patient care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe health minister basically chided the hospital management for not being appreciative of the funding cuts they\u2019re receiving from this government,\u201d said Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.<\/p>\n
He was referring to comments Jones made in a closed-door leadership conference earlier this month, when she reportedly expressed frustration about the OHA\u2019s public response to the province\u2019s hospital funding increase, which was one paragraph in a news release, compared to a page-and-a-half statement they wrote thanking the federal government for investments.<\/p>\n
She later explained to The Trillium that she was \u201csimply highlighting what we already have done, and we need a partner in our hospital systems\u2026. When we work together, we come forward with proactive solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The CCPA is recommending the province \u201cimmediately increase funding to improve hospital finances and capacity\u201d and \u201cdevelop a provincial health care workforce strategy and capital plan\u201d to address staffing shortages and improve the workplace environment.<\/p>\n
Editor’s note: This story has been corrected. The statistics on hospital wait times are for the 90th percentile, not “average” wait times.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Majority of Ontario hospitals are also forecasting budget deficits, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-665709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665709","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=665709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}