Ontario Health CEO admits system is under ‘tremendous strain’ and talks about 5 challenges rocking hospitals

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In a rare and candid interview, head of agency that oversees health system says “we’re in a different place” as COVID has worsened chronic problems.

Back when he was CEO of Lakeridge Health — a busy, five-hospital system in Durham region — Matthew Anderson typically got up at 5 a.m. to start solving the most pressing problems of the day.That extra workday hour is just the smallest indicator of the beleaguered state of the province’s health system.

Anderson, a seasoned health system leader, took on his role at Ontario Health on Feb. 1, 2020, eight months after the “super agency” was formed to oversee health-care administration in the province. When announcing his hiring, In a wide-ranging interview, Anderson answered questions about a health system reaching a crisis point, and spoke to what Ontario Health — an agency formed to integrate a siloed system — is doing to address critical challenges.There are record-long waits, with reports of ill and injured patients waiting days in ERs for a hospital bed. In May, the average wait for a patient admitted to hospital was 20 hours. That has increased from about 14 hours back in 2012.

This year, the number of shifts that can’t be filled by a staff physician is far higher than in previous years, he says. And there are fewer doctors willing to take on additional shifts. This has led, he says, to a situation where “our supply has gone down as our demand has gone up considerably.” A further concern with crowded emergency departments is that they reveal pressure points in other places in the system, such as home-care supports for elderly residents, Anderson says.

In the short term, Anderson says a priority is to prevent more staff from leaving hospitals and he acknowledges those who remain — from doctors and nurses to guards and cleaners — are tired and burned out from pandemic care. “How do we start to bring them back into the health-care system? We’re having those conversations now.”

It became even more of a challenge after the province closed ward rooms in long-term care early in the pandemic to help prevent COVID spreading among residents, taking about 4,000 beds out of the system, he says. Anderson says Ontario Health, ministries and other agencies are working on two broad strategies: daily meetings among regional care providers to figure out how to safely move more individual patients, and finding ways to create more system capacity.

Currently, about 212,000 people are waiting for a scheduled surgery, up from 198,000 before the pandemic hit in January 2019, according to data provided by Ontario Health.

 

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According to the article, one of the big problems is what it always has been, people who could be discharged but have no safe place to go. Fix LTC!

Meanwhile, fordnation has been M.I.A. since 03/22! Here he is with his sicophants! Are these losers part of the new unwanted hwy developer cabal? Don't forget CopperCreekGC is owned by one these hwy developer wannabes!

we reward incompetence in the administration of public health

ScottPiatkowski The man was provided with an 18% ($126,000) performance bonus in March 2022 raising his gross salary to $826,000 not including a $700/mo car allowance. Healthcare workers have been limited to 1% for the last 4 years. His bonus is much more than most HCWs salary. What did HE do?

pfizer LIED 🤥 GovCanHealth LIED 🤥!! That’s 1 & 2 !!!!!

Figure it out…with the amount of money we are giving you… figure it out! You are supposed to take care of people… so take care of them… FIGURE IT OUT!

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