Report says government cuts are having negative impact on patients in Northern Ontario hospitals

Hospital cuts have hit the region hard, says a report released on Saturday by the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.

The report, called Pushed Out of Northern Hospitals, Abandoned at Home: After 20 Years of Budget Cuts, Ontario’s Health System is Failing Patients, uses anecdotal experiences of hundreds of patients in more than 30 communities, including many in Northern Ontario, all of whom used a 1-800 patient hotline.

Callers were blunt, according to an OCHU release, saying the  "transformation has amounted to a personal tragedy for their families, with loss of life, mobility, independence all chronicled due to lack of access to acute hospital care," said Michael Hurley, president of the OCHU, a report co-author.

"The promised investments and services in community care, have not materialized," Hurley added. "Furthermore, the cuts to the acute care hospital system have restricted access, particularly for the elderly and especially for those living in remote, rural and northern communities. Hospital cutbacks, exacerbated by the challenges of geography and by poverty and underemployment in the north, are a cruel gift to a region already ravaged by the recession."

The report makes several recommendations, including properly funding hospitals, an end to the closure of acute-care beds, stopping the privatization of hospital surgeries and clinical services, a reversal of other privatization attempts and the reopening of chronic and alternative level of care beds.