Wellington County is one of the communities that is grossly underfunded when it comes to health care, according to the Growing Health Care Alliance, a group working to get more equitable funding for communities that are growing rapidly.
Taroq Asmi, the executive director of the alliance, told Centre Wellington council on Monday night that 31 communities in Ontario are growing rapidly, and every year between them, they are adding a population equal to that of Kingston.
But, he said, those same communities receive nowhere near the medical care facilities that Kingston does.
That results in a health care shortfall for the people in those growing communities, he added.
Asmi said the province has to be convinced to shift its health care spending to a population-need-based formula, so growing communities get the money they need for health services.
He said the province has divided itself into Local Health Integration Networks, and six of the 14 LHINs are growing quickly and not getting the funding they need to deliver health care.
He said those six LHINs are growing twice as fast as other communities, and receive 70% of the province’s annual growth.
And, Asmi noted, when it comes to basing medical needs in terms of age, where elderly populations need more health care facilities, those same six LHINs have 66% of the population growth.
Asmi said those high growth LHINs receive $255 per person less than citizens in other parts of Ontario that are not growing as quickly. That means a funding gap of $1.4-billion every year in health care operating expenses.
And that gap grows every year, he added.
The story is even worse in the Waterloo Wellington LHIN, where the population continues to rise sharply. This area is underfunded by $279 per resident for local hospital services, which, when compared to the rest of Ontario, means a funding shortfall of $205-million annually in local hospital services.
Asmi said the Liberal and Progressive Conservatives both acknowledged the funding gap in the last election, and in 2007, the province committed an extra $100-million in additional operating funds to high growth area hospitals.
But that money is spread over a number of years, and means the funding gap continues to grow, despite $30-million extra for 2008-09.
Asmi presented a proposed motion requesting the province to speed up the provision of that $100-million, implement a funding system that considered population density for funding hospitals and health care services, and develop a health care plan for high growth communities to complement the provincial Places to Grow strategy.
Centre Wellington council received the propose motion for information. It might reconsider it at a future time. Several councillors were absent.
Asmi added that when considering population growth areas, the alliance eliminated Northern Ontario and Toronto from the funding model in order to present more accurate figures. And, he warned, there are those who will fight against changes to the system because, by population and low growth, they benefit from the current health funding model.
Other communities have been supporting the alliance in its lobbying.
On March 3, the Town of Georgina in York Region and Cambridge passed resolutions calling on the Ontario government to provide a fairer share of provincial funding for hospitals in Ontario’s high growth communities.
Resolutions have now been passed by 19 high growth communities.
The alliance report shows that hospital services in high growth communities in the Greater Toronto Area and 905-telephone exchange regions, plus Waterloo Region, Simcoe, Wellington and Dufferin Counties receive, on average $255 less per resident in provincial funding compared to the rest of Ontario and that community-based and long-term care services received $84 less per resident in provincial funding.
For residents in those area, that translates into a total $1.404-billion annual operating funding gap for local hospital care and a $526-million annual operating funding gap for local community-based and long-term care services.
For example, residents in Cambridge also receive $279 less per resident compared to other Ontarians for hospital care, translating into a $205-million shortfall in annual operating funding. The hospital there recently struggled to balance its budget, which it did with cuts.
Residents in Georgina receive $226-less per resident compared to other Ontarians for hospital care translating into a $282-million shortfall in annual operating funding.
Leaders in those communities have noted that with the additional health care funding the premier Dalton McGuinty secured for Ontario through equal per capita health care funding from the federal government, the premier and the minister of finance have an opportunity to address the lack of fairness in provincial health care funding that is facing 4,000,000 Ontarians living in its fastest growing communities.
Asmi said his alliance is asking the province to treat high growth communities as the federal government finally treated Ontario – by sending more health care dollars to high growth areas.
Asmi said the Waterloo-Wellington LHIN is the third-lowest funded network in Ontario, and it also gets shorted in funding for community health care services, addiction serves, and assisted living services, all below the provincial average.
“This variation shouldn’t be there if the province was funding distributed on population need,” he said.
He noted that other provinces in Canada have long since moved to population-based funding for health care.
Mayor Joanne Ross-Zuj asked Asmi if he would be making presentations to other communities in Wellington, and he said he would.
He added that he hopes to take the issue to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, which he has already done several times. He is hoping to be able to make a presentation at the next AMO conference.
Councillors Walt Visser, Bob Foster, and Kirk McElwain were absent.
