There are plenty of solutions to fixing the problems of overcrowded hospitals
Re How Ontario’s next government could relieve overcrowded hospitals, June 3
The Ontario Retirement Communities Association (ORCA) was grateful to read Theresa Boyle’s piece highlighting the need for innovation to relieve pressure on overcrowded hospitals. We can help.
The system in Ontario today does need vast improvement. We need to stop pushing seniors into institutional beds because they cannot get reliable support to stay in their community. Moving to long-term care too soon or becoming an alternate levels of care patient because of affordability should never be the default. As a society, we need to respect and honour our seniors and provide a solution that supports choice and empowers each senior to live in the way they want, need and deserve. That’s why ORCA has been championing — a senior services benefit — a monthly allowance — sent directly to the senior to help pay for housing and care needs. It’s designed to alleviate financial pressures placed on seniors and would empower them to stay in the community among friends and peers longer where they can live and thrive. It’s an approach that ensures independence, longer. Other countries are already using this kind of self-directed care model. Why aren’t we? Laurie Johnston, CEO, Ontario Retirement Communities Association, Oakville Homelessness, poverty, chronic mental health conditions and addictions as well as lack of community supports for an aging population have resulted in a growing number of non-urgent care patients cycling through emergency departments and entering hospitals as “social admissions” where they prove difficult to discharge. Social workers are uniquely trained and regulated to be on the front line of these complex issues, and yet over the past year we have seen LHINs and hospitals cutting these integral roles and replacing them with generic discharge planning positions that in the short-term appear to save money, but in the long-term, risk adding costs to the system as patients return to the emergency departments and are readmitted to hospitals.
Social workers in the health-care system are too frequently underutilized. Our profession offers cost-effective solutions as recently demonstrated in two large GTA hospitals which placed social workers in emergency departments during peak hours as part of a threemonth pilot focusing on seniors with non-urgent care needs. By addressing the non-medical needs of these complex care patients and connecting them to community resources, social workers helped reduce admissions and delivered savings of $1.4 million when costs were annualized over a year. Preliminary findings from a third pilot are also showing promising results and freeing up doctors and nurses to help those in medical crisis.
Social workers have been vital to our health care and social service systems for decades; to realize wide scale system change, they must be part of finding a way forward. Joan MacKenzie Davies, CEO, Ontario Association of Social Workers, Toronto