Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak wants to apply first aid to the province’s ailing economy and remove Local Health Integration Networks (LHINS) and highly-paid management positions.
“We felt the priority should be patient care,” Hudak said.
The Progressive Conservatives’ white paper on reforming health care, released last week, also takes aim at management positions at Community Care Access Centres (CCAC).
“Administration costs $800 million for LHINs and CCACs,” Hudak said in a telephone interview with the Advertiser. “They’re too big.”
There are 14 LHINS and CCACS across the province.
The Conservative leader singled out the Waterloo Wellington LHIN amid reports the organization, which oversees an annual budget of $970 million, failed to meet many of its objectives.
“Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews is defending a $1 billion health care agency that’s missing most of its performance targets,” Hudak said.
“The Waterloo Wellington LHIN is currently failing to meet 12 of 15 goals established under provincial directive. It failed 11 of 14 targets last year.”
Targets missed included emergency room delays and diagnostic scan wait times, Hudak said.
LHIN CEO Bruce Laukner declined direct comment on Hudak’s proposals because the LHIN is a crown corporation.
“I can’t comment on political platforms or statements,” Laukner said. However, he said targets set by the LHIN and pointed out by Hudak measure different services.
According to Laukner, wait times for many services have improved even though they haven’t met specific targets. Those services are provided by hospitals under the jurisdiction of the local LHIN that might find it difficult to meet targets set by the network.
Laukner said many of the services are for non-emergency situations, with emergency services considered a priority. As an example, Laukner said cardiac surgery wait times have been reduced since the LHIN took over, from 146 to 33 days.
Prior to the establishment of the LHINS, provincial health care funding was given directly to hospital boards and management, but there was no integration of services in a service area. That is changing, Laukner said.
“Better health systems are integrated,” he added.
The Conservatives are proposing a return to the way hospitals functioned prior to the creation of LHINS around 2007, using volunteer hospital boards and medical professionals available to the boards.
“We need to build on what works,” Hudak said.
“That means recognizing that Local Health Integration Networks have failed to integrate care, and building off existing infrastructure and capacity. We propose to do this by putting health hubs – run by volunteer, skills-based boards and linked to regional hospitals – in charge of local planning, funding and service.”
The reforms, said Hudak, would be implemented through input from volunteers and professionals in local health care.
“Let’s review the facts,” Hudak added, citing annual performance reports on the 14 LHINS released in July. “Every one of them failed to attain most provincially-set targets. The numbers are dismal, adding up to a 77 per cent failure rate across the entire network.
“We need to break down silos like LHINS and CCACs, clearing away the separate layers patients now have to deal with, and giving them access to a seamless array of services in their regions,” he said.
“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 … especially when the system can be managed so much better through long overdue and sensible reforms.”
