Exposing the Ford government's hospital privatization scheme
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in public money is being used to dismantle and privatize our public hospitals, robbing the public to build the private,” Natalie Mehra, ED of OHC.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in public money is being used to dismantle and privatize our public hospitals, robbing the public to build the private,” stated Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC).
The OHC report, Robbing from the public to build the private: The Ford government’s hospital privatization scheme (February 2024), exposes operating rooms being under utilized in every part of the province while the Ford government diverts unprecedented amounts of public money to private for-profit clinics and hospitals to construct new operating rooms.
OHC spent the past year investigating the unused operating room capacity in local public hospitals. Accessing information through the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) and conducting interviews with surgical staff, OHC gathered information about the Ontario government’s budget and expense documents, media reports, contracts and accountability agreements. This information revealed much higher costs along with large funding increases provided by the Ford government to for-profit corporation clinics, hospitals and staffing agencies.
During that same time period, the Ford government imposed cuts along with deficits and wage caps on public hospitals effectively denying them the ability to attract and retain staff which impeded the use of existing operating room capacity.
The communities of Alexandria, Brockville, Cambridge, Hawkesbury, Kitchener, London, North Bay, Oakville, Sault Ste. Marie, St. Catharines, Southampton and Wiarton had operating rooms that were functional but unused.
Meanwhile, the communities of Alliston, Almonte, Barrie, Bowmanville, Carelton Place, Collingwood, Cornwall, Kingston, Meaford, Nepean, Niagara Falls, Orillia, Oshawa, Ottawa, Pembroke, Peterborough, Toronto and Welland had operating rooms that were closed late afternoons, evenings, overnight and on weekends. In total, the operating rooms were closed more than they were open.
The report also found the Ford government not only funds public hospitals at the lowest rate of all provinces, it also consistently imposed real dollar cuts on public hospitals that forced service closures and created deficits. These findings were corroborated by the independent research conducted by the Minden Paper. During that same time period, increased funding to for-profit hospitals and clinics reached, and often exceeded, 300 per cent.
Private, for-profit hospitals were funded at double the rate per surgery that public hospitals received.
Private for-profit ophthalmology clinics received between 21 and 56 per cent more funding for each cataract surgery.
The Ford government refused to rein in the use of for-profit staffing agencies despite agencies routinely charging up to three times more than public hospitals for staff. In fact, staffing agency prices have increased over 70 per cent since Ford took office.
Meanwhile, public hospital staff were forced to take a pay cut when Ford imposed Bill 124, the Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, capping wage increases at one per cent in November 2019. That created staffing and recruitment challenges.
Bill 124 was declared unconstitutional in November 2023 and $1 billion in back pay is now being reimbursed to nurses. Yet, not every health service board chose to prudently set money aside in the event that Bill 124 was over turned. The Minden Paper found 16 hospitals that set aside $126 million in FY 2023 to pay nurses when Bill 124 failed.
The Ford government also chronically under spent the health care budget while transferring billions to its contingency fund and budget surplus.
Volunteers with the Minden Paper include folks with lived experience in healthcare, board governance, digital strategy, operations management, financial analysis, nonprofit management and community advocacy.
The team focused its energy on establishing the real reasons Minden’s emergency room was closed by the Ford government with only six weeks notice and without public consultation. What these experts uncovered forced them to take a closer look at hospitals across Ontario. And, what they found, and shared with Small Change, is truly terrifying.
Minden falls within the governance of Haliburton Highlands Health Services (HHHS). The Minden Paper folks were able to access the board minutes online which provided a wealth of information. Not all health service boards are this transparent – although that should be a standard requirement for providers of public services and any entity receiving public funding.
The Ministry of Health withheld nearly two million dollars in funding from HHHS for almost two years between fiscal year (FY) 2021 and FY 2022. That withholding of funds did not happen in Long Term Care (LTC). This is reflected in HHHS board meeting minutes as harming the organization.
Both HHHS board meeting minutes and local news coverage reflected concerns about the increasing overuse of private nurse agencies as well as the higher costs they charged.
A month before the closure was announced, HHHS’ Finance Chair cited deficit stress and stated that financial and staffing pressure informed every decision the organization made.
HHHS’ FY 2022 deficit of $200,000 increased to $4,100,000 in FY 2023. An adjustment made for the sale of a house brought the average monthly deficit to $360,000 for FY 2023.
The Minden Paper found that eight days before its fiscal year-end in 2023, HHHS underestimated its deficit by $1 million. The projected $3 million deficit announced on March 23, 2023 had to be revised to $4,100,000 at the June 22, 2023 Annual General Meeting (AGM).
Despite irrevocable evidence that HHHS was facing huge financial challenges, both HHHS and the Ford government publicly stated the closure was not about money or funding.
Due to the funding delays, HHHS opened a line of credit. The accruing interest was the equivalent of a nurse’s monthly salary.
HHHS sold a house that was originally purchased for a non-profit as well as their organization’s future growth.
The accounting treatment that HHHS chose to implement regarding the potential impact of Bill 124 placed further strain on the organization.
The HHHS has admitted at recent board meetings that without intervention, it faces bankruptcy in FY 2024.
Extrapolate the HHHS findings to hospitals across the province and the picture is very grim. Of the 102 hospitals in deficit, there was a 992 per cent increase in average deficit from -$545,000 to -$5.9 million. There was also a 3,300 per cent increase in total deficit from -$17.9 million to -$610 million.
Ontario has the distinction of being the province that provides the least funding for public hospitals. Compounding that chronic under funding is the Ford government’s chronic under spending on public healthcare even in the midst of a deficit crisis.
Yet, unprecedented amounts of public money have been flowing to private for-profit hospitals and clinics which charge more for essentially the same services while denying access to patients with more complicated health histories.
These private for-profit hospitals and clinics pull staff out of the public system further undermining its viability.
Now is he time for Ford, Health Minister Sylvia Jones and Minister of Long-Term Care Stan Cho to stop using talking points, disinformation and word salads to distract the public. The work of OHC and the Minden Paper lay bare the true state of healthcare and LTC in Ontario and that truth demands transparency by, and independent oversight of, the Ford government.
“A few for-profit corporations are being enriched by the Ford government’s privatization scheme while our public hospitals and patients pay the price,” said Mehra.
Ontarians need, and deserve, a robust investigation into why the Ford government is continuing to privatize the public health care system when that was not part of his mandate.
“It is beyond time that there is a rigorous investigation into who is benefitting from these policy choices and what their connections are to this government, because the costs and threats to our local public hospitals and the future of our single-tier public health system are very real and urgent,” Mehra stated.
#OHC #TheMindenPaper #FordIsKillingUs #LTCReformNow #FundOntHealthCare #StopPrivatizingHealthCareFord
Every voter needs to know these facts
This is so infuriating. Classic Conservative strategy of undermining a public system through "death by a thousand cuts" to create a "need" of a private system for the wealthy.