Private hospitals thrive while public ones star: Health coalitions

Ontario health coalitions are calling for an investigation into Doug Ford government’s funding of private, for-profit hospitals and clinics, as a new report reveals the depth of problems facing public hospitals.

Article content

Hospitals in London and across Ontario are being starved, with funding slashed, deficits rising and operating rooms left empty, a new report from the Ontario Health Coalition says.

Article content

Meanwhile, the Doug Ford government is sending increasing amounts of public dollars to private, for-profit hospitals – including double the rate per surgery given public hospitals – the coalition says in a report released Wednesday: Robbing from the public to build the private: The Ford government’s hospital privatization scheme.

“This is the most Earth-shattering report I’ve ever witnessed in my entire 25 years of doing this,” Peter Bergmanis, co-chair of the London Health Coalition, said Wednesday.

“We’re going to be demanding that there is an investigation into the Ford government’s all-too-cozy ties to the for-profit providers that are benefiting from this. This is bigger than the Green (Belt) scandal. This government must be held to account.”

Article content

Freedom of information requests, interviews with surgical staff, and financial audits show the extent of the damage to publicly funded hospitals, the Ontario Health Coalition said.

Meanwhile, “Ontario government budget and expense documents, media reports, contracts and accountability agreements … provide a litany of examples of much higher costs and large funding increases provided by the Ford government to for-profit corporation clinics, hospitals and staffing agencies,” the report said.

The report was released in several centers in Ontario by area health coalitions.

“Very eye-opening results from recent hospital audited financial statements revealed that the future fiscal viability of London’s public hospitals is at stake,” Bergmanis said at a news conference in the city.

Article content

London Health Sciences Center ran a deficit of $1.7 million in 2022, which ballooned to $46.5 million in 2023, he said.

London Health Sciences Centre’s Victoria Hospital campus has 18 operating rooms, but two to four are not running daily, he said. Most of the rooms close in the afternoon and on weekends, usually two operating rooms are used, for emergency only, he said.

University Hospital has 16 operating rooms of which one is not being used daily, Bergmanis said. Most run 8 am to 4 pm In the evenings there is one operating room available and on-call coverage for emergencies, he said.

Article content

St. Joseph’s Hospital, the public ambulatory and day surgery hospital, has 11 operating rooms, but one is not used regularly, he said.

“Enterprising surgeons, seizing upon the diminished opportunity for public hospital OR time, moonlight in private for-profit clinics, catering to those who can afford to pay to jump the queue while exacerbating the lengthening public wait-time list,” Bergmanis said.

“For-profit health care is a disaster for the public health system. It is draining us of staff and vital resources and money. And it does nothing to improve the quality of our wait time lists for surgeries.”

Another example of funding imbalances: private for-profit ophthalmology clinics across Ontario get 21 to 56 per cent more funding from the province for cataract surgery than public clinics, the Ontario Health Coalition report said.

Article content

“Hundreds of millions of dollars in public money is being used to dismantle and privatize our public hospitals, robbing the public to build the private,” Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said in a written statement.

“A few for-profit corporations are being enriched by the Ford government’s privatization scheme while our public hospitals and patients pay the price. It is beyond time that there is a rigorous investigation into who is benefitting from these policy choices and what their connections are to this government.”

A spokesperson for the Ford government defended its spending on public hospitals.

“The facts are under that the leadership of Premier Ford, our government has made record investments in our publicly funded health care system,” Hannah Jensen said in an emailed statement.

“Since 2018, we have increased the health care budget by over $18 billion, investing $80 billion into the system this year alone, this includes a four per cent increase to the hospital sector and, is the total health care budget of almost every other province and territory combined (Canadian Institute of Healthcare Information).”

[email protected]

Article content