Ontarians will suffer without extra hospital funds: critics

Ontario residents should expect to pay for more health-care services and endure longer lineups if the Liberal government follows through on its threat to freeze funding for hospitals next year, critics said Thursday.

Health Minister Deb Matthews has reportedly warned hospitals that she may freeze their budgets starting in the spring because the province is grappling with a $24.7-billion deficit — the largest in its history.

The most hospitals can hope for is an increase below last year's 2.1 per cent, which critics say is so meagre it has already forced hospitals to close beds and cut services.

The Liberals are now pleading poverty after foisting a health tax of up to $900 per person on Ontario taxpayers, said Progressive Conservative health critic Christine Elliott.

"The reality will be that a lot of hospitals are going to have to start cutting services to the public, and that's directly in contrast to what the minister originally said," Elliott said in an interview.

"I think taxpayers have every right to be outraged about this."

$154M shortfall
More than a third of Ontario hospitals — 61 in total — couldn't balance their books last year, amounting to a $154-million shortfall.

That number will only grow if the government starves hospitals of a much-needed cash infusion, critics say.

Patients will be forced to travel further for health care, wait longer for a hospital bed and may even have to fork over cash for services, said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.

"It means that we'll likely see attempts to close more of the small and rural hospitals," she said.

"It means that more services like physiotherapy will be cut and people will have to pay out of pocket for them ... It means longer lineups in the ERs because there's not enough hospital beds."

Premier Dalton McGuinty vowed in October to help cash-strapped hospitals through tough economic times, but there are signs that a freeze on hospital funding is imminent.

'Plan for zero per cent next year'
A spokesman for Lakeridge Health Network, which runs three hospitals and three specialty sites in east-central Ontario, refused to comment Thursday on how a funding freeze would affect its finances.

But in an earlier interview, CEO Kevin Empey suggested that any hospital hoping for a bigger increase in the next provincial budget is "dreaming."

"The signals from the government are: plan for zero per cent next year," he said.

Some hospitals are already on financial life support and are borrowing heavily to meet payroll and other essential costs, Mehra said.

Ontario's 159 public hospitals receive about 85 per cent of their funding from the province through 14 Local Health Integration Networks, which were set up by the Liberals three years ago to make local health-care decisions and dispense funding.

Hospitals are forbidden from running deficits by law, but many receive waivers from the LHINs because they've agreed to balance their books.

CBC.CA