Speaking of dashed hopes, I was also looking forward to much more fallout from the news story we heard a couple of weeks ago whereby hospitals were threatening elderly patients with fees way over and above the limit prescribed by the Ministry of Health; I found the practice to be usurious, despicable and morally reprehensible, perhaps because it struck a chord with me -- you see my mother is also a senior and to quote John Bradford: "...but for the grace of God...".
I'm being especially critical here because, disregarding the higher rates being charged for a moment, this policy also wreaks emotional havoc on the elderly and their families -- just imagine being told that your mother/father has to be placed in a nursing home in unfamiliar territory, tens of miles from home, just because of a bed shortage!
Friends of mine who work in healthcare had mentioned this, but I always felt it to be a distant possibility, as opposed to being actual hospital policy.
Note this was happening at one of our bigger Toronto hospitals that has as its mission statement: "We care for our patients and their families when it matters most" -- my imagination went wild as to how widespread the practice was amongst the smaller ones in the GTA!
To my surprise and dismay, the only fallout from the above was that the Ministry of Health (MOHLTC) simply sent a reminder to the LHINs of what the daily charges should be, and that was the end of that -- or so I thought!
Shortly after, I saw another story whereby McGill (Montreal, Quebec) was slammed with an undisclosed fine by the Quebec Government for raising their tuition fees by 900%; now, based on my understanding of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, education (Self-actualization) has a much lower priority than healthcare (Safety), so one could perhaps assume the offending hospitals would, at a minimum, be also levied a heavy fine for raising their rates by upwards of 3,000%!
I later resolved that anomaly in my mind by thinking perhaps the MOHLTC realizes our hospitals couldn't afford any fines anyway, so the latter would just be an exercise in futility.
So, what would be my take-away on the above? Well, I would start with the following:
- to realize our hospitals are cash-flow challenged and that they're prepared to push the envelope to mitigate the latter
- to partake of a small glass daily, based on a recent University of Calgary study
- to resolve to get acquainted with and use EMR, EHR and PHR technologies, wherever possible
Ernest A. James
President & CEO
Regal Informatics Inc.
