To the editor:
Regarding the $5-million deficit at the hospital, clearly there are major issues which are seeing short-term solutions that cost us a lot in the long run. Mental health patients are being kept in the regular hospital instead of in their own facility.
There’s overcrowding at clinics leading people to use the emergency room instead (I find waits at clinics longer than at the ER) and multiple people sharing rooms leading to spreading of disease and infections instead of single rooms for all – a proven cost saver over the long-term (in multiple studies).
I'm sure there are many others, from minor things such as the parking lot machines often not working leading to less revenue to major ones, like a fixed budget instead of one based on need.
Our province as a whole needs to rethink how health care is handled. If we truly want it to stay universal (as I hope we do) then we need to look at adjusting how it works. Perhaps a fixed fee for each service hospitals handle without caps thus not penalizing a hospital for actually doing its job – namely taking care of people.
John Northey,
Thunder Bay
