THUNDER BAY – A Health Quality Ontario report shows in 2014-15 less than one-quarter of adults in Northwestern Ontario were able to access their primary health-care provider on the same or next day.
The 23.8 per cent figure, the lowest of any Local Health Integration Network in Ontario, is in stark contrast to the province’s central west region, which includes the Greater Toronto Area, where 53 per cent succeeded in securing a same-day or next-day appointment with either their primary-care provider or a primary-care provider in the same office. The Ontario average is 43.5 per cent.
The 10th annual Measuring Up report, released on Thursday, also shows just 17 per cent of patients in the region – from Thunder Bay west to the Manitoba border – were able to have a follow-up visit with a doctor within seven days of being discharged from the hospital for a mental illness or addiction. It also indicated the people living in the poorest neighbourhoods fared worse at a follow-up than those in the richest ones.
In Toronto Central, the number more than doubled to 39.5 per cent while the provincial average was 30.2 per cent.
The region did fare well when it came to the percentage of patients readmitted to hospital within a 30 days of discharge for mental illness or addiction, something the system is seeking to reduce. Only 10.6 per cent of such patients under the auspices of the North West LHIN were readmitted, compared to 13.1 per cent province-wide.
It proved to be the second-lowest rate in Ontario.
Residents living in long-term care homes are also less depressed than elsewhere in the province, with just 20.5 per cent reporting increased symptoms of depression in 2015-16. The Ontario average is 24.2 per cent.
Finding access to primary care, without going to a hospital emergency room, is also much tougher in the North West LHIN.
A total of 70.3 per cent of respondents 16 and older say it is either very or somewhat difficult to find care outside of a hospital on evenings or weekend, markedly higher than the 52 per cent rate reported province-wide.
The region is slightly behind the Ontario average and last in the province when it comes to the percentage of home-care patients who received their first visit within five days of authorization, with 89.3 per cent hitting the standard locally, compared to 93.7 per cent of all Ontarians. The figure drops to 76.3 per cent when only home-care patients with complex needs are factored into the equation. That’s 9.1 percentage points below the norm across all 14 LHINs. Seventy-six percent of regional patients reported excellent or very good experiences with care co-ordinators.
The report also shows a higher percentage of patients in the North West LHIN with low to moderate care needs entered a long-term care home. No other region was above 20.7 per cent, with the provincial average hovering just below 18 per cent.
The remoteness of the region may play a factor, based on the availability of family caregivers, financial resources and the ability of patients and caregivers alike to cope.
Wait times to move into long-term care facilities in the Northwest, either from home or the hospital, are also among the highest in Ontario, an average of 118 days from the hospital and 147 days from home. Both ranked third-worst in the province.
Those in local long-term care homes also suffered the most day-to-day pain, with 12.4 per cent reporting moderate pain daily or any severe pain, more than double the Ontario average of 6.1 per cent. Patients in long-term care facilities were restrained on a daily basis at a higher rate than any other in Ontario, 13.3 per cent compared to six per cent Ontario-wide.
Only 13.6 per cent of patients in palliative care had at least one visit at home by a doctor in their final 30 days of life locally, compared to 34.4 per cent across the province. An Ontario-high 78.9 per cent of palliative care patients in the Northwest died in hospital, well above the provincial average of 64.9 per cent.
The North West LHIN did not immediately respond to an interview request for this story.
