Hospitals in 905 get shortchanged
The Toronto Star
Friday, May 6, 2005
Page: A22
Section: Editorial
Byline:
Source:

What goes around comes around. That is a lesson Premier Dalton McGuinty learned this week, just as he was escalating his "fair share" campaign to get more federal funding for Ontario. The lesson came Tuesday when a coalition of hospitals from the 905 part of the Greater Toronto Area turned the tables on the premier by showing up at Queen's Park to push for a "fair share" from his own government.

And just like McGuinty in his fight with Ottawa, it seems these hospitals in Durham, Peel, York and Halton make a very good case.

The turnaround came when the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance, a group of 11 hospitals serving Durham, Peel, York, Halton and adjoining areas in Scarborough and Etobicoke, noted that the communities they service are growing much faster than the rest of the province. Together, the four regions account for half of Ontario's population growth, and more than 25 per cent of its people. And yet they receive a disproportionately small share of provincial hospital funding, even when Toronto, with its expensive teaching hospitals, and Northern Ontario are taken out of the mix.

Whereas the rest of the regions in the province get an average of $704 per resident in hospital funding, the GTA/905 regions receive only $492.

Worse, the disparities appear to be growing.

Of the $307 million increase in provincial hospital operating funding for 2004-05, Alliance hospitals got 12.2 per cent, although the regions' population suggests they should have received at least double that share. As for the extra funding announced since the start of this year - the one-time $200 million transitional fund and the $460 million for MRI and CT scanners and other diagnostic and medical equipment - the shares going to the GTA/905 hospitals ranged between 10 per cent and 12 per cent.

Clearly, hospitals in the 905 regions are operating under a heavy strain. This is despite the fact that, because of their proximity, 905 residents can rely more heavily on Toronto's big specialty hospitals than other Ontarians. Although their acute care beds are filled at a much higher rate than in the rest of Ontario - 94 per cent compared to 82.5 per cent in Toronto and 77 per cent for the province as a whole - a disproportionate number of 905 residents are forced to seek treatment at hospitals in other regions.

Due to a lack of space in their hospitals, 27 per cent of residents in the four 905 regions must go elsewhere for hospital treatment. That rate is almost four times higher than in Windsor, 21/2 times higher than in Sudbury, and nearly twice the rate in Kitchener-Waterloo.