Patient Care Is Imperative Too

Ontario has passed legislation to enhance transparency, accountability and the quality of care across the health care sector. During the passing of The Strengthening Quality and Accountability for Patients Act, 2017; Liberals said that the Bills aim is to make certain that the province’s health system continues to put patients and their families “first” by making important changes to key sections of legislation which strengthen oversight and safeguard the quality care in Ontario. The legislation comes at a time, when Premier Kathleen has been facing an all around criticism from a rejuvenated Progressive Conservatives with its leader Patrick Brown poising tough questions to the Liberals.

The Legislation has provisions to enable paramedics to provide appropriate, safe and effective care for patients by providing timely on-scene care, and/or transportation to another facility that best meets their needs. The purpose is to allow patients to receive more appropriate care closer to home and in the community. Also improving ambulance service coverage is another focus area.  The Liberals also aim to address overcrowding in the emergency department.

Liberals seem to have built enough robustness in the Legislation to curb major issues that ail the healthcare system in Ontario. However, that may not be enough and the relief may not be coming too easy.  Hospital overcrowding is a grave concern with a number of patients being administered medication under “Hallway Medicine”. The problem is so severe that close to 4300 patients received care in the hallways of Brampton Civic Hospital from April 2016 to April 2017, with significant lengths of stay ranging from 40 to nearly 70 hours. The predicament with such kind of healthcare where patients are treated in corridors, hallways is that the sick have to experience excessive noise that too under reduced privacy. Such conditions negate the quality of care that can lead to extended length of stay thus affecting their overall experience.

The steps announced in the Legislation may not be able to reduce the suffering of the patients. Healthcare is not just about announcing more beds for the hospitals; the associated resources also need to be planned and the biggest challenge comes in the form of having adequate and skilled healthcare professionals. For addressing the root cause, the ruling party should have understood that the packed emergency departments are not just the symptoms of too many people turning up at Hospitals with non-urgent problem, but is a reflection of the inability of the healthcare system to transfer admitted patients to the beds in the emergency department. The scenario is getting grim not only for the waiting time for in house treatment but also for emergency treatment. Putting up the waiting time on websites for In Patient Treatment has given a ray of hope to the patients and has resulted in reducing the waiting time, but for emergency care, it is not practical to make public their wait times and number of admitted patients in bed in the emergency department, for the sheer reason that there is so much of uncertainty associated with patients who are brought to emergency and the kind of the treatment they would get.

Ontario has erred at yet another step. In order to ensure greater transparency and more detailed reporting, the Legislation aims at prohibiting creation of new private hospitals in Ontario. This is being planned when patients across Ontario experience significant waiting times for various diagnostic procedures. As per the report of Statistics Canada that had the data for 2016, Canadians still have to wait for 3.7 weeks for a Computed Tomography (CT) Scan and 11.1 weeks for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, and 4.0 weeks for an Ultrasound.  Without addressing the waiting time for diagnostic procedures, inpatient treatment and at the emergency room, the provisions being incorporated in the Legislation would have little impact. Our government needs to acknowledge that Wait Times do have serious consequences, that may come in form of increased pain, suffering and mental anguish; transforming potentially reversible illnesses into chronic, irreversible conditions.

Ontario will have to put in resources in the form of infrastructure, health care professionals in order to really let Ontarians derive the true benefits of the legislation.