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For further information contact: Tariq Asmi, Executive Director, GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance Phone: 416-205-1331 E-mail: tariq.asmi@gtahealthcare.com |
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Make fair share of
provincial health care funding the central issue in Whitby-Ajax byelection,
GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance urges
WHITBY – Voters in Whitby-Ajax should support provincial by-election candidates who will fight to reverse the growing inequity in provincial hospital funding that is forcing area residents to seek care further from home, according to the chair of the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance.
“We hope voters make this the central issue of the campaign. We have been asking the provincial government to begin to correct this situation for years. Instead, it has only become worse,” said Kirk Corkery, Chair of the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance.
Since 2003, per capita hospital funding for Durham residents, including those in Whitby-Ajax, has fallen further behind that of other Ontarians. Residents of Durham and the three other regions that make up the GTA/905 have seen per capita funding for local hospital care fall from $229 below the provincial average in 2003 to $255 below the provincial average today. As a result, the annual funding gap for hospital services in the GTA/905 has increased from $590 million to $740 million. For Durham alone, the annual funding gap is over $100 million.
“Voters in Whitby-Ajax should ask MPP candidates to commit to working to ensure their hospitals receive a fair share of provincial hospital funding,” Corkery said. He added that voters should also ask candidates to commit to fighting for building additional hospital capacity in their communities and funding for small rural sites of multi-site hospitals.
“Health care is a priority for everyone. This is an opportunity for Whitby-Ajax residents to choose the candidate they feel will fight to improve their local access to hospital and health care services,” Corkery said.
“Underfunding has a huge impact on local access to hospital services. It means that Whitby-Ajax residents wait longer for hospital care than other Ontarians and are more likely to have to leave their own communities for hospital care and by-pass their local hospital,” Corkery said.
The GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance has been calling on the Provincial Government to improve local access to hospital care and address the hospital and health care funding inequities in Whitby-Ajax and the rest of the GTA/905 by:
1. Providing an immediate investment of “growth funding” for hospitals serving the residents of Ajax and Whitby and the rest of the GTA/905 to meet the growing health care needs and prevent the funding gap from getting worse;
2. Revising provincial funding policies and formulas to fund health services on the basis of population size and characteristics; and
3. Bringing forward a Provincial Health Care Strategy for Ontario’s High Growth Regions that will complete Places to Grow and offer an effective growth plan for Ontario over the next 30 years.
“Like all other residents in Durham and the GTA/905, residents of Whitby and Ajax are not receiving provincial funding for hospital care at the same level of other Ontarians,” Tariq Asmi, Executive Director of the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance, said. “Durham residents are now paying more than $109 million each year through the new health care tax. You would have thought that things would have improved. Instead the per capita funding gap for Durham residents’ hospital care has gotten worse.”
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 representing more than 25 per cent of Ontario’s population. The GTA/905 area is the fastest growing region in Ontario, accounting for more than half of Ontario’s annual population growth. The Alliance represents the three million residents in the GTA/905 regions to ensure that they get better care close to home.
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