Qs & As about the State of Hospitals Report

Why was this report prepared?

This report was prepared by the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance to provide residents of Durham, Halton, Peel and York with information about the performance of the hospitals in their communities and to identify issues that affect their ability to access hospital care close to home.

How often will it be published?

This is the first in what will become an annual report on the state of hospital care in the GTA/905. We expect to publish it every year at about this time.

Where did the information come from?

The report is based on information and statistics from a variety of sources including the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, Census Canada, and other reputable sources in the healthcare sector, including the hospitals themselves. Many indicators were prepared by an independent consulting firm, Healthcare Concepts in Toronto.

What are the major findings and conclusions?

For those GTA/905 residents who can access care in their local hospital, the care they receive is excellent. However, there are growing concerns that not all residents who want to access hospital care in their own communities can do so.

Another key finding is that residents of the GTA/905 are being shortchanged in terms of hospital funding and this underfunding, in the face of rapidly growing population, is placing strains on GTA/905 hospitals’ ability to provide accessible care, close to home for GTA/905 residents.
Per capita hospital funding for residents of the GTA/905 is $212 per person less than the Ontario average.

This translates into a funding gap of $544 million a year. This funding gap is continuing to grow as more people move to the region.

As a result, more than 35,000 people who live in the GTA/905 must seek care outside their communities every year, placing additional costs and stress on patients and their families.

Can you explain how this funding gap came about?

This situation has been developing for more than a decade. Hospital funding methodologies have not been able to keep up with the high rate of growth resulting in significant underfunding gaps.

Hospital funding is based on the number of people a hospital is expected to serve in its catchment area, not on the actual population and not about having patients get care in their local hospitals.

In 1996, growth funding was made available to help hospitals provide services in high-growth areas like ours.

However, this growth funding was folded into a funding formula that now unfortunately focuses more on lowering hospital costs instead of population growth, local health care needs and that our hospitals are providing a fuller range of services.

As a result, the gap in funding keeps getting bigger as we keep growing.

What is the Alliance asking for?

On behalf of the three million residents living in Ontario’s fastest growing communities who deserve to have care in their own community hospitals, the Alliance is seeking:

• A fair share of any new hospital funding (At 40% of age-weighted annual population growth and currently serving 75% of our residents, that’s 30% of base funding for hospitals)
• Being designated as priority regions for capital investments (consistent with Places to Grow)
• A commitment to close the hospital funding gap of $544 million over a fixed period of time

Don’t all other Ontario hospitals face the same challenge?

No. No other region in Ontario has hospitals at 94 per cent capacity.

No other region in Ontario has as many people who have to look for hospital care outside their communities.

No other region in Ontario is growing as fast and the GTA/905 regions.

No other region represents 50 per cent of the annual growth in Ontario.

No other region can say they are 30 per cent lower cost than the alternative.

What does the funding gap actually mean to patients in the GTA/905?

It means more crowded hospitals. As you can see in the report, our hospitals are at 94 per cent capacity. The Ontario average is 77 per cent.

It means that 35,000 residents of the GTA/905 have to seek hospital care away from their own communities with all of the additional cost and stress on themselves and their families.
It means that GTA/905 residents wait longer, on average, for a number of procedures like hip and knee replacements.

And, while we don’t know for certain, these figures seem to indicate that some GTA/905 residents might not be getting the procedures they need at all.