For Immediate Release:
April 6, 2005

GTA/905 HEALTHCARE ALLIANCE WELCOMES ICES REPORT
ON ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE SERVICES

Toronto – The GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance welcomes today’s report by the Institute for Clinical and Evaluative Studies (ICES) “Access to Health Care Services in Ontario”. The report makes clear that the government needs to improve how it allocates health care funding across the province in five key service areas. The services reviewed by ICES include selected cancer surgeries, cardiac procedures, cataract surgery, hip and knee replacements, and CT and MRI scans.

“The GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance fully endorses the funding and access recommendations contained in the ICES report,” said Kirk Corkery, Alliance Chair. “This report not only calls for more funding to improve access to key health services but also for a fairer, population-based distribution of funding so Ontarians can have better access to care, closer to home”.

The report’s first recommendation on wait time funding states that “funding should be allocated to provide all Ontarians with equitable access to the five key services, regardless of geographical location.” While the report states that short-term “fixes” may be required to reduce wait lists in certain areas (including transferring patients outside their communities), the report recommends that this option is not a long term solution. A long-term solution, according to the report, is to ensure that “resources should be made available locally to meet legitimate local needs.”

The report also shows variations across Ontario in terms of access rates for specific procedures within the five key service areas. For twelve specific procedures reviewed by ICES, residents in the four areas comprising the regions of the GTA/905 have rates of access per 100,000 residents that are below the provincial average for nine of those procedures. Most rates of access to services are lower in the GTA/905 than they are in Northern Ontario.

“Residents of the GTA/905 are already being short-changed when it comes to adequate per capita funding for health care,” said Tariq Asmi, Executive Director of the Alliance. “When compared to other regions in the province on a per patient basis, the GTA/905 receives 30 per cent less total health care funding, 27 per cent less hospital funding, and 24 per cent less for home care. Today’s report further illustrates the need for action by the government to end this imbalance.”

The GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance is the collective voice of acute care and mental health hospitals across the GTA/905 region - from Oshawa to Burlington and north to Newmarket. Alliance hospitals provide care in communities that represent more than 25 per cent of Ontario's population. The GTA/905 area is the fastest growing region in Ontario, increasing by more than 90,000 new residents annually and comprising more than 50 per cent of Ontario's annual population growth. The GTA/905 Alliance represents the more than three million residents in the region to ensure that they get better care close to home.

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