Health Quality Ontario report paints grim picture

Health Quality Ontario report paints grim picture A new report from Health Quality Ontario paints a bleak picture of healthcare in the province. Callam Rodya reports.

A new report from Health Quality Ontario, the provincial lead on the quality of healthcare, paints a bleak picture of healthcare in the province.

The annual Measuring Up report prepared by Health Quality Ontario shows that people are waiting longer for the care they need and the pressure on hospitals, especially here in the northeast, is growing.

Ontario hospitals have a problem, they're already stretched beyond capacity, but Health Sciences North Chief Executive Officer Dominic Giroux says the hospitals have a duty to be there for the patients and their families.

Meaning they can't turn anyone away, especially because for many patients, there's nowhere else to go.

"Half of the patients who do present in the emergency department do so because of their inability to see a primary care physician in a timely way." said the HSN CEO.

And it gets worse, according to the latest report from Health Quality Ontario.

It shows hospital beds are being tied up by patients waiting for care elsewhere at the equivalent of 10 large hospitals being occupied every single day.

It also shows emergency visits have risen more than 11% in six years and that patients spend an average of 16 hours waiting to be admitted.

Things get worse when you focus in on the northeast.

Only 26% of patients see a specialist within 30 days of a referral, provincially, it's more than a third.

After being hospitalized for a mental health illness, only 26% are able to see a family doctor or psychiatrist within 7 days. The provincial average is 36%.

And more than 22% of beds in the region are occupied by patients waiting for care elsewhere, which is well above the provincial average of 15%.

"This is not the way we want to be using our hospitals and it's certainly not I don't think what patients and their families want to have when they should be cared for in either a long-term care home or with assisted living." said Anna Greenberg, of Health Quality Ontario.

But Sudbury hospital administrators say without a sharp increase in long-term care beds, shouldering the weight of an aging population will keep falling to the hospitals.