Submitted from the Office of Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak (Ontario’s PC opposition leader Tim Hudak has been a long-time harsh critic of the Hamilton Niagara-Haldimand Brant Local Health Integration Network – known by many locally as the LHIN – and this provincial bureacracy’s support of the Niagara Health System and its controversial ‘Hospital Improvement Plan’ for hospital services across the Niagara, Ontario region. Here is the Hudak government’s latest stab at the LHIN.)
HUDAK ON LOCAL HAMILTON-NIAGARA LHIN: YOU CALL THIS PROGRESS?
GRIMSBY, September 12– Niagara Region residents can again have confidence in a world-class health care system, but only if we close down costly bureaucracies and use the money to directly serve local-patient needs, Ontario PC Leader and Niagara-West Glanbrook MPP Tim Hudak said today.
Ontario Tory Leader Tim Hudak
Hudak made the comments in front of the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN. On Monday Hudak released Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Health Care – the PCs’ latest white paper on bold ideas to tackle the roots of the problems local residents face with their healthcare needs.
The document is already generating major debate, just like the prior two PC papers on affordable energy and labour reform. Its focus is on empowering local health professionals to treat people – not push paper. It also proposes to help patients better navigate through their healthcare needs and not get lost in a bureaucratic maze.
“We need to build on what works,” Hudak said. “That means recognizing that healthcare bureaucracies, like the LHINs, have failed to improve patient care. Instead, we need to leverage existing strengthens to ensure residents get first-rate healthcare service. We propose to do this by creating health hubs that bring together and engage local nurses, doctors and hospital administrators, to plan, provide and ensure funding is being put toward essential frontline healthcare services.”
But the government continues to defend the LHINs – despite overwhelming evidence that they are a costly failure. On Monday Health Minister Deb Matthews said, “We’ve come a long way when it comes to providing better care for patients.
Hudak refuted these claims by citing recent annual reports on the performance of all 14 LHINs. The LHINs are failing to attain most provincially-set targets. The numbers are dismal, adding up to a 77 per cent failure rate across the entire network. The Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN met only two of its 14 health targets – this translates into a 14 per cent success rate. Examples of failed targets include wait times for both cancer surgery and hip replacements.
“It’s unacceptable. My community ended up with a brand-new LHIN office but what patients and residents want is a new West Lincoln Memorial Hospital. The government cancelled it. They put politics ahead of people. Residents deserve better. This is what I’m committed to fighting for,” Hudak added.
Hudak said we need to break down silos like LHINs and Community Care Access Centres, clearing away the separate layers patients now have to deal with, and giving them access to a seamless array of services in their regions. “To continue tinkering with the system is like shoring up a foundation with a two-by-four: It may hang for a while, but it’s bound to collapse.”
We also need to remember that our health care system is for providing care, not for creating or sustaining well-paid managerial jobs for its own sake, Hudak said, “especially when the system can be managed so much better through long overdue and sensible reforms like these.
(Niagara At Large invites you to share your views below.)
Niagara At Large 
Tim Hudak woke from a coma after finding that he lost an election because he was too timid and lacked any fire in his belly. This vacuum has been filled by the NDP. Without a valid platform, Tim Hudak will never attract the voters. he should reinvent himself, or give somebody else a chance to woo the voters.
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The new Progressive Conservative policy paper, Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Healthcare does make a reasonable criticism of the LHIN as they are beholden to the Premier’s cabinet, they are too large and there is little local control. Our LHIN covers Haldimand, Hamilton, Halton and Niagara. Their decision to force the NHS to implement the HIP plan has had disastrous effects on our health services. At the present time there are 39 people working in our LHIN and a large number deal with only the financial aspect of dolling out the dollars to the various health systems.
My main concern with the PC policy paper is that they want to restructure health care by eliminating not only the LHINs but also the Community Care Access Centers and to replace them with the creation of 30-40 health care hubs based in hospitals. These hubs would be responsible for disbursing the local area’s funding and could move money from one kind of provider to another. This is a recipe for disaster as the other 120 hospitals grovel and beg for funds.
Not exactly a way to keep the rural and small town voters happy with your party as they see their hospital close and services disappear.
Who will be responsible to do this in our area? Will it be the NHS or a hub covering an area from Hamilton to the Niagara River? How much money will be taken away from hospitals and health services to pay for consultants, restructuring costs. The last time the PC did something like this ( under Mike Harris) billions were siphoned out of the system and in Niagara we were left with long term deficits that we are still trying to pay off .( over $100 million)
This is bound to create uncertainty and insecurity in the health care workforce – perhaps a positive for the PCs, but hardly a plus for health care. If the last round of PC health care restructuring during the Mike Harris era is any indication, the restructuring will also soak up up millions of hours of health care time and billions in health care dollars.
The hospital hubs will not be able to find millions in savings as they will be spending millions to attract qualified workers to deal with their new responsibilities and to pay those responsible for overseeing their restructuring.
Saving money could only be done by closing hospitals, beds, limiting health sevices and health access, closing more ERs and small community and rural hospitals. How can the hospitals oversee long term care – especially since they are trying to close all their complex care beds and home care? Both long term care and home care are grossly underfunded at the present time. Hudak’s plan does not suggest that there would be more money for those vital services. In Niagara, well over 1000 people who have been assessed are waiting for a placement, thousands of others are waiting for assessement. CCAC does not have the funding to hire more people. Who will over see the case management and work on making sure that patients are placed in the right LTC facility. In order to do this , these hospital hubs would need more money than what is presently allocated to the LHINs and the CCACs.
The PCs are also hitting at the core of Medicare as they want more fee for service. The poor, young families and seniors will be hard hit as they will have to pay more out of their pockets. Doctors and clinics will be laughing all the way to the bank. They also want more contracting out of services from the hospital and it looks like private hospitals.
At least with the PCs you know where they are coming from, their platform is out there. The Liberals are doing this on the stealth – P3 hospitals, delisting ser vices and allowing procedures to be done in private clinics. There is some talk that the Liberals want to end the CCAC’s. Where is the Liberal paper.
The new Progressive Conservative policy paper, Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Healthcare does make a reasonable criticism of the LHIN as they are beholden to the Premier’s cabinet, they are too large and there is little local control. Our LHIN covers Haldimand, Hamilton, Halton and Niagara. Their decision to force the NHS to implement the HIP plan has had disastrous effects on our health services. At the present time there are 39 people working in our LHIN and a large number deal with only the financial aspect of dolling out the dollars to the various health systems.
My main concern with the PC policy paper is that they want to restructure health care by eliminating not only the LHINs but also the Community Care Access Centers and to replace them with the creation of 30-40 health care hubs based in hospitals. These hubs would be responsible for disbursing the local area’s funding and could move money from one kind of provider to another. This is a recipe for disaster as the other 120 hospitals grovel and beg for funds.
Not exactly a way to keep the rural and small town voters happy with your party as they see their hospital close and services disappear.
Who will be responsible to do this in our area? Will it be the NHS or a hub covering an area from Hamilton to the Niagara River? How much money will be taken away from hospitals and health services to pay for consultants, restructuring costs. The last time the PC did something like this ( under Mike Harris) billions were siphoned out of the system and in Niagara we were left with long term deficits that we are still trying to pay off .( over $100 million)
This is bound to create uncertainty and insecurity in the health care workforce – perhaps a positive for the PCs, but hardly a plus for health care. If the last round of PC health care restructuring during the Mike Harris era is any indication, the restructuring will also soak up up millions of hours of health care time and billions in health care dollars.
The hospital hubs will not be able to find millions in savings as they will be spending millions to attract qualified workers to deal with their new responsibilities and to pay those responsible for overseeing their restructuring.
Saving money could only be done by closing hospitals, beds, limiting health sevices and health access, closing more ERs and small community and rural hospitals. How can the hospitals oversee long term care – especially since they are trying to close all their complex care beds and home care? Both long term care and home care are grossly underfunded at the present time. Hudak’s plan does not suggest that there would be more money for those vital services. In Niagara, well over 1000 people who have been assessed are waiting for a placement, thousands of others are waiting for assessement. CCAC does not have the funding to hire more people. Who will over see the case management and work on making sure that patients are placed in the right LTC facility. In order to do this , these hospital hubs would need more money than what is presently allocated to the LHINs and the CCACs.
The PCs are also hitting at the core of Medicare as they want more fee for service. The poor, young families and seniors will be hard hit as they will have to pay more out of their pockets. Doctors and clinics will be laughing all the way to the bank. They also want more contracting out of services from the hospital and it looks like private hospitals.
At least with the PCs you know where they are coming from, their platform is out there. The Liberals are doing this on the stealth – P3 hospitals, delisting ser vices and allowing procedures to be done in private clinics. There is some talk that the Liberals want to end the CCAC’s. Where is the Liberal paper.
The new Progressive Conservative policy paper, Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Healthcare does make a reasonable criticism of the LHIN as they are beholden to the Premier’s cabinet, they are too large and there is little local control. Our LHIN covers Haldimand, Hamilton, Halton and Niagara. Their decision to force the NHS to implement the HIP plan has had disastrous effects on our health services. At the present time there are 39 people working in our LHIN and a large number deal with only the financial aspect of dolling out the dollars to the various health systems.
My main concern with the PC policy paper is that they want to restructure health care by eliminating not only the LHINs but also the Community Care Access Centers and to replace them with the creation of 30-40 health care hubs based in hospitals. These hubs would be responsible for disbursing the local area’s funding and could move money from one kind of provider to another. This is a recipe for disaster as the other 120 hospitals grovel and beg for funds.
Not exactly a way to keep the rural and small town voters happy with your party as they see their hospital close and services disappear.
Who will be responsible to do this in our area? Will it be the NHS or a hub covering an area from Hamilton to the Niagara River? How much money will be taken away from hospitals and health services to pay for consultants, restructuring costs. The last time the PC did something like this ( under Mike Harris) billions were siphoned out of the system and in Niagara we were left with long term deficits that we are still trying to pay off .( over $100 million)
This is bound to create uncertainty and insecurity in the health care workforce – perhaps a positive for the PCs, but hardly a plus for health care. If the last round of PC health care restructuring during the Mike Harris era is any indication, the restructuring will also soak up up millions of hours of health care time and billions in health care dollars.
The hospital hubs will not be able to find millions in savings as they will be spending millions to attract qualified workers to deal with their new responsibilities and to pay those responsible for overseeing their restructuring.
Saving money could only be done by closing hospitals, beds, limiting health sevices and health access, closing more ERs and small community and rural hospitals. How can the hospitals oversee long term care – especially since they are trying to close all their complex care beds and home care? Both long term care and home care are grossly underfunded at the present time. Hudak’s plan does not suggest that there would be more money for those vital services. In Niagara, well over 1000 people who have been assessed are waiting for a placement, thousands of others are waiting for assessement. CCAC does not have the funding to hire more people. Who will over see the case management and work on making sure that patients are placed in the right LTC facility. In order to do this , these hospital hubs would need more money than what is presently allocated to the LHINs and the CCACs.
The PCs are also hitting at the core of Medicare as they want more fee for service. The poor, young families and seniors will be hard hit as they will have to pay more out of their pockets. Doctors and clinics will be laughing all the way to the bank. They also want more contracting out of services from the hospital and it looks like private hospitals.
At least with the PCs you know where they are coming from, their platform is out there. The Liberals are doing this on the stealth – P3 hospitals, delisting ser vices and allowing procedures to be done in private clinics. There is some talk that the Liberals want to end the CCAC’s. Where is the Liberal paper.
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Correct me if I am wrong; Weren’t these Ontario Conservatives that set up Regional Government? (Another bureaucratic maze) and did they NOT set up these unaccountable Health Care Service systems (Like the NHS and the other unaccountable administrations throughout Ontario) Systems that did away with Cost efficient local entities and replaced them with administrations that completely ignored consultation with the people except finally in the busy hallway of the Welland YMCA.
Mr. Hudak was a chartered member of Mike Harris’s much hated gang
that ran Ontario in dictatorial fashion …….
Good Bye Tim….
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