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The remedies for Ontario’s ailing health system
Monday, March 6th, 2023
… the quiet crisis of closed ERs in Ontario’s more remote communities should be another wake-up call. Beyond the ER crisis is the shortage of family doctors who would lighten that ER load… about 2.2 million Ontario residents were without a family doctor… The emphasis has been on creating primary-care teams… [but] about 75 per cent of family doctors function without such teams in place.
Tags: budget, Health, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
New health care funding should open doors to family doctors
Tuesday, February 21st, 2023
The college recommends primary care teams include nurses, who co-ordinate care and offer clinical support, and mental health workers, who provide psychological and addictions counselling and connect patients with social supports… the college also advises streamlining and centralizing the referral process for tests and specialists, and connecting electronic medical records with hospitals and home and community care.
Tags: budget, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
Health care transformation is needed next
Monday, February 13th, 2023
… while [the provinces] have their hands extended to Ottawa. A majority of them are in surplus, or can see a surplus just over the horizon, but the provincial share of health funding has barely kept up with pandemic-era inflation… [Ford’s] Progressive Conservative government will have $12.5 billion in “excess funds” available over the next three years and is shortchanging health care by $5 billion.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction, privatization, standard of living
Posted in Health Delivery System | No Comments »
A judge’s ruling focuses attention on the homeless crisis
Monday, February 6th, 2023
A court ruling that Waterloo cannot dismantle an encampment may oblige governments to do a better job of ensuring that people have shelter… Clearing encampments is traumatizing for those being moved, costly for taxpayers and ultimately counter-productive, since it only serves to displace unhoused individuals rather than provide lasting accommodation.
Tags: Health, homelessness, ideology, poverty, rights
Posted in Inclusion Policy Context | No Comments »
Federal healthcare funding should have strings attached
Saturday, December 17th, 2022
Simply dumping health care dollars in provincial capitals is not a solution. Tossing money at Doug Ford, who has chosen license rebates and gas tax cuts (extended for another year) over more health spending is a particularly bad idea. It would offer a bandage when triage is required. Without a strategy and targets, there would be no assurance the extra federal funds would be going to healthcare…
Tags: budget, featured, Health, ideology, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Policy Context | 5 Comments »
Prescription for a broken health care system can’t be more politics
Sunday, November 13th, 2022
Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos arrived promising an increase in health care transfers to the provinces in return for agreement on national health care indicators and creation of a health care data system. Duclos left Vancouver blaming premiers for undercutting the work of their health ministers by issuing a statement that the Vancouver meeting was a failure, even as the meeting was ongoing.
Tags: budget, featured, Health, jurisdiction
Posted in Health Debates | 349 Comments »
Don’t delay federal disability benefit
Saturday, November 12th, 2022
Ten per cent of able-bodied working age adults live below the poverty line, compared with 14 per cent of those with mild disabilities and 28 per cent of those whose disabilities are severe… The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance highlights other problems with the bill… It doesn’t detail “the size of the benefit, when it will start, how much if any will it be increased due to inflation, and who is eligible for it.”
Tags: budget, disabilities, featured, ideology, participation, pensions, poverty, standard of living
Posted in Inclusion Debates | 25 Comments »
A catalyst to mend child welfare
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022
… youth transitioned out of Ontario’s child protection system… experience low academic achievement, unemployment or underemployment, homelessness or housing insecurity, criminal justice system involvement, early parenthood, poor health and deep loneliness… The inquest presented the opportunity to change that approach, as it focused on the flaws in the system… and suggested how they could be fixed.
Tags: Indigenous, jurisdiction, mental Health, poverty, standard of living, youth
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | 13 Comments »
The toll of police work
Monday, October 24th, 2022
Due to tears in the social safety net, many vulnerable people fall through the cracks, and it then falls to police to pick them up. Police therefore become, by default, de facto doctors, nurses and social workers, as they have to deal with issues for which they’re neither qualified nor equipped: homelessness, addictions and mental illness. This adds enormously to operational stress — and to trauma — for overpoliced, vulnerable people who need care, not cops.
Tags: crime prevention, homelessness, ideology, mental Health, poverty
Posted in Child & Family Delivery System | No Comments »
Tackling the opioid crisis
Tuesday, October 11th, 2022
… statistics point us to two solutions: First, we need to regulate, rather than criminalize, all psychoactive drugs, and second, we ought to provide a safe supply of drugs to users. Those two solutions were, respectively, the “core” and “urgent” priorities identified by an expert task force last year, but so far, Ottawa has done relatively little toward making them a reality.
Tags: corrections, Health, homelessness, ideology, jurisdiction, mental Health, pharmaceutical, standard of living
Posted in Health Policy Context | 287 Comments »
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