To the Editors,
According to the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario, in the nine-year period from 2010-11 to 2019-20, health sector spending grew at an annual average rate of 3.2%. Admittedly, this was a slow growth rate that was attainable by discontinuing funding to hospitals, reducing physician payment rates, and limiting investments in new long-term care beds, with only 611 new beds created between 2011 and 2018.
However, the 2021 budget purports that from 2019-20 to 2029-30, the annual average rate of health sector spending will be lower than the previous period, growing at an average annual rate of 2.6%, yet promising a staggering 30,000 additional long-term care beds and 3,069 new hospital beds?
I do not have a background in finance, but this doesn’t seem to add up.
Then again, the Premier of Ontario has a high-school diploma, the Minister of Education does not have a background in education, and the Minister of Health has a college diploma in radio broadcast. I feel justified with my interpretation of healthcare expenditure.
No wonder we are in the situation we are in now. In the last 10 years, health sector spending in Ontario has been focused on discontinuing funding to hospitals and limiting investments in new long-term care beds. So much for supporting our healthcare workers.
Legislation was passed last year requiring air conditioning in all resident bedrooms by June 22, 2022. Many long-term care homes are yet to meet this requirement.
If you ask healthcare workers who have been around for a while, they will tell you that the promise of new and upgraded facilities has been floating around since the 90s. The province cannot deliver on their promise of air conditioning, and the budget cannot deliver either; 30,000 additional bedrooms will require air conditioning in long-term care homes. We owe it to our seniors!
Accountability is going to go an extremely long way in fixing the healthcare crisis we are in. There are other issues such as staffing shortages which are plaguing our hospitals, forcing many ERs across the country to close the doors.
We need an appropriate action plan and reform, not a band aid solution.
I am not talking about privatizing our healthcare! I am talking about real financial accountability, especially on behalf of the federal government to provide additional support.
Stephen Lecce, how about investments toward healthcare education? They want things to get so bad that the only option is putting more money in the hands of wealthy corporations and less in our pockets. Prove me wrong.
Walter Cassidy,
Hagersville
