The four hospitals of Quinte Health need to collectively add 82 staff and 27 beds per year over the next decade just to maintain current service levels.
Members of the CUPE Ontario Council of Hospital Unions were in Belleville Friday releasing findings of a new report on the hospital capacity crisis and the impacts of chronic underfunding since the Ford government was elected.
The report says in order to maintain current levels of service, Ontario must increase annual hospital spending by $2 billion this year.
CUPE researcher Doug Allan tells Quinte News a four per cent bump in funding is required to offset population, aging, and utilization but that inflation would also have to be offset, meaning that hospital funding to maintain service levels should be the in 7% range hence their $2 billion suggestion.
Researchers used data on hospital funding, bed capacity, staffing levels, admission times and other metrics to compile the report which Allan says tries to explain why these problems exist and whether the Ford government’s current plan will improve healthcare in the province.
He says provincial funding increases that have already been announced are simply not enough.
Allan adds that a big part of the problem is that there just aren’t enough staff in the province’s hospitals with their data showing there will be a capacity shortfall of 13,800 hospital beds and more than 80,000 staff by 2032.
“So we’ve gone from 3,000 job vacancies which is about a one per cent job vacancy level in 2015, to 23,000 job vacancies – over 23,000 job vacancies, in Ontario hospitals. That’s a 534 per cent increase over those years. It just keeps on going up.”
While the province has stated that 12,500 new doctors have been added since 2018, 32,000 new nurses have been registered over the last two years and another 30,000 are studying to become a nurse, Allan says those numbers don’t tell the whole truth as they don’t account for the thousands of people who have left those professions over the last few years.
Belleville General Hospital, being the biggest Quinte Health facility, would need the biggest increases to keep up.
“To maintain services, add 43 staff per year and six beds per year to do that, to deal with the changing nature of the population and to deal with utilization. That’s what we need.”
The CUPE report shows Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital would need 18 staff and two beds per year while Trenton Memorial Hospital would have to add 15 staff and two beds with North Hastings Hospital in Bancroft requiring six more staff and one bed per year.
Allan says while the government may have a planned 10 per cent funding increase over the next 10 years to build new hospitals and increase beds, that’s nowhere near enough.
“But the population has grown 18 per cent so it’s not a real increase, it’s a decrease relative to the population. And then on top of that we have aging and utilization growth which is increasing. That puts us even further behind.”
The reports says health care funding is not increasing to reflect the growing population or the aging population with the baby boomer generation especially needing more care now.
Allan notes that Ontario is also one of the lowest areas in the world when it comes to hospital beds per capita.
The number of hospital beds per 1,000 people in Ontario is 2.23.
Allan says that’s the lowest in Canada and among most medium and developed countries which average about four beds for every 1,000 people.
“And that’s partly the reason why we have these ongoing problems with very high bed occupancy. The high levels of bed occupancy, over 90 per cent. That’s part of the reason why we have things backing up into emergency rooms. That’s why we have a long wait in our emergency rooms.”
CUPE’s report found there is currently a 75 per cent failure rate in admitting ER patients within the target time.
Allan says the government should be looking beyond $2 billion just to maintain service that is already below par but that it is a start.
Read CUPE’s report here.
