Remarks to the Media to Respond to Minister Smitherman's Comments in the Globe and Mail
Ontario Hospital Association
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Speaking Notes for Hilary Short, OHA President and CEO
Remarks to the Media
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
Good afternoon. Thank you for being here. My name is Hilary Short, and I'm the President and CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association.
The purpose of today's availability is to respond directly to Minister Smitherman's comments that appeared in the Globe and Mail this morning and to set the record straight on the willingness of hospitals to proceed with change and make the necessary, difficult decisions to make the hospital system more efficient.
The men and women who run Ontario's hospitals deserve our gratitude and respect. The managers and Boards of hospitals have an extremely challenging job as the Minister himself remarked last week at Queen's Park.
They work hard everyday on behalf of their communities. Board members are volunteers who are now being forced to make extremely difficult decisions about the levels of service they can continue to provide patients in their communities. These are wrenching choices.
By all measures hospitals in Ontario are leaders in Canada in efficiency. This has been confirmed by independent studies done by the Hay Group.
National statistics show that Ontario has the fewest hospital beds per capita and are the lowest funded per capita in Canada.
Our lengths of stay are the shortest and we are the heaviest users of day surgeries in the country.
And, administrative costs in our hospitals have been falling consistently - for example, Ontario has 50 fewer hospital CEO's today than a decade ago.
The OHA will continue to find new ways of improving the way we do business, as we have always done.
Any charges by Minister Smitherman that hospitals are reluctant to change or look for savings are unfounded and unfair, to the managers of our hospitals and to the 3,000 voluntary hospital trustees who govern with such commitment under increasingly difficult circumstances.
The OHA has been a consistent supporter of the government's desire to transform the health care system. We will continue to work with the government to further this goal.
But while we support transforming the health care system to one that has a greater focus on primary care, coupled with enhanced home and community care services, it will take time and patience for this to happen.
Hospitals have patients walking through our doors each and every day. Dismantling the hospital system piece by piece before the new system is in place poses a huge risk to patient care.
Hospitals remain determined to find all administrative savings and efficiencies before being forced to cut patient care services.
We take this commitment seriously and to suggest otherwise does a disservice to the dedicated leadership in our hospitals and those who serve our patients each and every day.
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