For Immediate Release

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Front-Line Health Care Providers in Durham Call for Fair Hospital Funding

Ask Government to live up to commitment for growth funding

 Durham: Front-line health care providers in Durham today launched a poster and mail-in campaign to raise awareness about the provincial hospital funding policies that disadvantage residents in Ontario’s high growth regions such as Durham, including Whitby-Ajax, and the other GTA/905 regions of Halton, Peel and York.

 “Residents in Durham continue to get less and less funding to run local hospital and other health care services compared to other Ontarians”, said Dr. Lino Durante, a hospital physician practicing in the region.  “The lack of growth funding for hospitals and the growing gap in per capita funding in Durham makes it difficult for me and my colleagues to provide the timely access to care for the increasing number of patients in our growing communities.  This is further compounded for those of us who work at multi-site hospitals”.

 “We need the hospital growth funding that was committed to by the Ministry of Health last summer to maintain and improve local access to hospital care in high growth regions”, Dr. Durante added.  “The growth funding has not come through and this campaign launch reflects our growing disappointment and frustration”.

GTA/905 residents in Durham, Halton, Peel and York have seen their regional 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 residents alone, the per capita gap has increased from $194 to $279 resulting in an annual funding gap of over $100 million.

 “We fully appreciate that the provincial government has committed to building and expanding hospitals across the GTA/905 such as the hospital redevelopment in Ajax”, said Dr. Henry Huang, President of the Medical Staff Association at Rouge Valley Health System.  “But those projects will not impact local access and funding for another three to seven years and we need hospital growth funding now and for the next several years”.

 “As front line health care providers, we see the impact of the funding gap on our patients everyday”, said Lynda Rath, a Registered Nurse at Lakeridge Health and President of Ontario Nurses Association, Local 051 “Health care providers in high growth regions like Ajax and Whitby really have been doing so much with so little for far too long and for the sake of our patients we will be working with other providers here and across the GTA/905 to bring our call for growth funding directly to Queen’s Park”.

 The poster and “GTA/905 MPP mail-in” campaign will be rolled out across the four GTA/905 regions of Durham, Halton, Peel and York over the coming weeks.  The goal is to raise awareness about the need for growth funding for hospitals in the GTA/905 in order to improve local access to hospital care for the three million residents living in the GTA/905.  Posters and brochures are free and are available from the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance and can be ordered on their website.

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Backgrounder

Posters/Brochures