News Release

HEALTH SERVICES RESTRUCTURING COMMISSION RELEASES OTTAWA-CARLETON PLANS

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OTTAWA, February 24, 1997 - The Health Services Restructuring Commission (HSRC) today released its report and recommendations on restructuring hospital services in Ottawa-Carleton.

The restructuring plan, based on criteria of quality, accessibility and affordability, is contained in the Ottawa-Carleton Health Services Restructuring Report and notices of intention to issue directions being delivered today to local hospitals, the Ottawa-Carleton Regional District Health Council and the Minister of Health.

Local organizations and individuals will have 30 days to send in written comments. After considering new information received during this period, the HSRC will issue its directions to hospitals and recommendations to the Minister of Health.

The HSRC based its report and recommendations on health services needs in Ottawa-Carleton and eastern Ontario projected to the year 2003. The restructuring plan takes projected population growth in Ottawa-Carleton into account, as well as anticipated increased referrals from surrounding areas. It guarantees continuing access to French-language services.

By March 31, 1999 all acute services will be provided at the Ottawa General, Ottawa Civic, Queensway-Carleton and CHEO sites.

To help carry out this transition, the governance structures of the Ottawa General, Ottawa Civic, Riverside and Montfort hospitals will be merged into a new amalgamated hospital. Governance of The Rehabilitation Centre will be transferred from the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group to the new governance structure. The Commission will appoint a facilitator to lead the governance discussions.

Riverside and Montfort hospitals will no longer provide hospital services. Riverside Hospital will close as of June 30, 1998, and Montfort Hospital will close as of June 30, 1999. They will be decommissioned as acute care hospitals.
By June 30, 1998, the Salvation Army Grace will also close, and be decommissioned as an acute care hospital. It will transfer its obstetrics and gynecology program to the Queensway Hospital, and the balance of its programs to the new amalgamated hospital.

The Commission recommends that alternative uses for the newer sites be explored.

Queensway-Carleton Hospital will be governed by its own board, and all its chronic care services will be transferred to the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa. In its new role, the Queensway-Carleton Hospital will provide a full range of hospital services, including obstetrical services and CT scan services.

The Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario, under its own governance, will provide all children's services, including mental health, and lead development of a network for children's services. The HSRC is recommending that a provincial pediatric task force be formed to examine highly specialized children's services, and determine how these services should be provided so as to achieve high quality care.

All the governance structures must be representative of the communities they serve, and take into consideration their cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic characteristics.

The Royal Ottawa Hospital will be governed by its own board of directors.

Brockville Psychiatric Hospital will close. The majority of patients who use the mental health services it provides come from the Ottawa-Carleton catchment area, so the HSRC is directing that the Royal Ottawa Hospital will provide forensic and long-term psychiatric care for that part of eastern Ontario. Acute psychiatric programs will be transferred to the new amalgamated hospital and Queensway-Carleton.

To improve mental health care in the region, the HSRC is advising the Minister of Health to create a new mental health agency to co-ordinate planning, implementation and on-going monitoring of mental health services for all eastern Ontario counties.

The HSRC is recommending establishment of an academic co-ordinating body with representation from all the hospitals, academic facilities and other agencies. Its purpose will be to examine issues relating to health teaching and research that will arise as a consequence of restructuring.

The Sisters of Charity of Ottawa will provide chronic care and rehabilitation services at St. Vincent Hospital and Elisabeth Bruyère Hospital, which will continue under their governance.
When the plan has been implemented, Ottawa-Carleton will have 1,370 acute care beds, 125 acute adult psychiatric beds, 28 children's psychiatric beds, 145 rehabilitation beds and 531 chronic care beds. It will also have 132 long-term mental health beds, and 43 forensic mental health beds.

The Commission's plan recognizes the special characteristics, including the bilingual nature, of the community. And it ensures access to French-language health services: while the Montfort site will close, its programs and services will be part of the new, amalgamated hospital. And the Ottawa General is already providing services in French.

Commissioner George Lund said that the HSRC is very aware that the actions that must be taken to preserve Ontario's health services and create a genuinely co-ordinated health care system will displace many health care workers.

"We are therefore appointing a mediator to help hospital administrations develop labour adjustment plans together with representatives of their affected employees," he said. "We will also appoint a fact finder to examine the impact of hospital restructuring on physicians working in Ottawa hospitals."

The Commission's main priority in the Ottawa-Carleton region has been to lay the foundation for an integrated health system, while recognizing the unique characteristics of the region's health care services and their role in the broader eastern Ontario system.

"Ottawa-Carleton already ranks among the best in the province in terms of providing high quality, efficient health care," said Lund. "But there is still room for improvement. Once our restructuring directions are implemented, all Ottawa hospitals will deliver services as efficiently as the top providers in Ontario. As well, integration and consolidation will result in significant savings in overhead costs."

In developing its restructuring plan, the HSRC used the work of the district health council, in particular the extensive data and analysis produced by its consultants. Additional material was gathered from 115 written submissions, from meetings with key stakeholders in the local health system, and from the Commission's own research and site visits.

"Our decisions were aided by the excellent research initiated by the district health council, and by constructive input from the community," said Lund. "Site visits and meetings with groups and individuals also made invaluable contributions to our report."

He pointed out that Ottawa-Carleton has made significant progress since 1989 in improving the use of hospital services. As well, the region boasts a very advanced home care system which promotes communication and sharing of information among facilities.

The HSRC is recommending to the Ministry of Health that an additional $3.8 million should be invested in home care, adding 95,000 home visits a year. It is also recommending $4.6 to $6.1 million for transitional, or sub-acute care.

The Commission is undertaking research into long-term and rehabilitative care throughout the province. This research will establish policy and planning targets to guide our decisions in these areas. It is anticipated that the research will be completed by early March. Following a period of consultation, the policy will be applied in restructuring decisions for communities across the province. The HSRC anticipates significant investments in long-term care in the Ottawa-Carleton region - at least as much as is being saved from reduction to chronic care services.

Overall, the Commission estimates that implementation of the restructuring plan will yield savings of $126 million out of the 1995/96 budget of $680 million. It recommends to the Minister of Health that the additional $26.2 million that will be saved by closing Brockville Psychiatric Hospital should be reinvested in community mental health care throughout the region.

The HSRC is recommending a capital investment of $106 million to facilitate hospital restructuring.

The Health Services Restructuring Commission is an independent and expert agency of the Ontario government, with a four-year mandate to restructure health services across the province. It's mandate is to direct hospital restructuring and advise the Minister of Health on reinvesting in and restructuring other health services to improve quality and patient outcomes.

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OPSEU continues court fight for Francophone College

TORONTO —The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has joined forces with members of the francophone community to file an application for judicial review today challenging the Ontario government’s 2001 closing of the Collège des Grands Lacs.

OPSEU is challenging the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities’ decision of Oct. 5, 2001 to accept the recommendation of the Grands Lacs Board of Directors to close the only French-language college serving the 165,000 francophones in Central – South Western Ontario.

“We’re acting to protect our members, who were harmed in this case, and also to protect the rights of Ontario’s francophone communities,” said OPSEU President Leah Casselman.

OPSEU, and the other applicants, Ms. Julie Gigliotti, president of the local, and Mr. Claude F. Leduc, are seeking a declaration that the Minister’s decision was illegal as it violated, among others, constitutional principle of the protection of minorities, as well as Ontario statutes and regulations then in place.

The applicants have retained the services of the Ottawa law firm of Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP, and are working with Mr. Ronald F. Caza, who represented the francophone community when the government tried to shut the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa. According to Mr. Caza, “before making such a drastic decision, the Minister had to take into consideration the impact of such a decision on the linguistic minority. This was obviously not done. It is our position that such a failure was in violation of the unwritten constitutional principle of the protection of minorities outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Quote:

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Orginally posted by nicefolks20

OPSEU continues court fight for Francophone College

TORONTO —The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) has joined forces with members of the francophone community to file an application for judicial review today challenging the Ontario government’s 2001 closing of the Collège des Grands Lacs.

OPSEU is challenging the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities’ decision of Oct. 5, 2001 to accept the recommendation of the Grands Lacs Board of Directors to close the only French-language college serving the 165,000 francophones in Central – South Western Ontario.

“We’re acting to protect our members, who were harmed in this case, and also to protect the rights of Ontario’s francophone communities,” said OPSEU President Leah Casselman.

OPSEU, and the other applicants, Ms. Julie Gigliotti, president of the local, and Mr. Claude F. Leduc, are seeking a declaration that the Minister’s decision was illegal as it violated, among others, constitutional principle of the protection of minorities, as well as Ontario statutes and regulations then in place.

The applicants have retained the services of the Ottawa law firm of Nelligan O’Brien Payne LLP, and are working with Mr. Ronald F. Caza, who represented the francophone community when the government tried to shut the Montfort Hospital in Ottawa. According to Mr. Caza, “before making such a drastic decision, the Minister had to take into consideration the impact of such a decision on the linguistic minority. This was obviously not done. It is our position that such a failure was in violation of the unwritten constitutional principle of the protection of minorities outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada.”

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Are you there?

There is lot of discussion on extremely high cost of prescription drugs and not covered under healthcare system.

I would point out another serious aspect too, which I experienced recently when I happened to take medical service for my son for the first but few times consecutively. He was precribed some important tests related to kidney and even after 10 days of tests there is no whereabout of the test reports with the clinic. Direct follow ups with laboratory or clinic results in some stereo-type answers. I never experienced sympothy with a single person I came across out of few.

I was comparing my experience of here with the way it went in Mumbai in the same case sometime back.Although it was much croweded and little less clean as compared to here, but I could see anxiety and exitement on faces when it was matter of delay of few hours ! Atleast somebody was there to listen , which somehow gives feeling of unsecured...

Just sharing the recent experience.....

What is the relationship between Bilingualism and Health Care?

Billions of dollars!!

While most Canadians are solely concerned with getting good health care and want the government to fund it, there is the Francophone population that desires to be treated in hospitals that speak French.

It isn't enough that the Canadian population would naturally have enough French speakers to interpret for the patient, if needed.....the aim of official bilingualism is to make French a requirement of the jobs in hospitals, schools, and any service that government provides. The next problem is that 75% of Canadians don't speak French, so naturally, the government must spend Billions of dollars to train people to speak French (these people otherwise have no real interest in learning, using or maintaining the French language). That is why they keep throwing good hard earned tax dollars into maintaining French in a North American sea of English.

So this is the waste in the system...every aspect of government spending is now poisoned with an additional wasted amount to provide the same service in French. This includes translation costs, recruitment, French training, French testing, French PR (to keep the dream alive).

There are also separate Francophone schools (yes paid by Ontario taxpayers) that you are not entitled to send your kids to if one of the parents was not fully educated in French (i.e. Francophone).

Subject: Montfort's tongue: Ottawa Citizen, 18 April 2003, page A13

Montfort's tongue


I took my mother to the Montfort Hospital emergency depart­ment last week. I was greeted at the doors by three people in masks, gowns and gloves because of the SARS outbreak.


My mother was admitted immediately; but as I was assisting with information at the entrance, I noticed a large tripod with a sign mounted on it, just outside the entrance, explain­ing why no one could accompa­ny a patient into the emergency area and what procedures and information were required. The problem is that the large sign was in French only.


When I questioned politely why the sign was not bilingual, the young male employee working for the hospital at the entrance responded, "because this is a French hospital." How reassuring for anglophone pa­tients about to enter a public-hospital emergency room.


My family and I have lived in the east end of Ottawa for more than 40 years and have used the Montfort many times and enjoyed very good service. I fully support true bilingual ser­vices and recognize the need for this. While I could read what was written, there are many people who cannot read French who use the Montfort Hospital, my mother included.


It is deplorable that the hos­pital administrator would not have provided this vital infor­mation in French and English.


The National Capital Com­mission can insist on every­thing being bilingual in its leases with its tenants, and yet a hospital funded by the tax­payers of Ontario does not provide the same courtesy when patients visit the emer­gency department.


Bill Saunders, Ottawa

There is one of reason, Why the people not move to location other then GTA ?

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Kap