Home care given funding boost

Additional $11M should help make health-care system more flexible

Ontario’s government is putting $11 million more than planned into home and community care this year in a bid to lower the number of patients being treated in the hallways of overcrowded hospitals, Health Minister Christine Elliott says.

The money is on top of an increase of $144 million announced in the spring budget, which includes $45 million aimed at “high need” areas where backups are worst, Elliott said Wednesday. The total home-care budget for this fiscal year is now $3.1 billion.

Local health-care agencies will use that $45 million to collaborate directly with hospitals on the best ways to free up acute-care beds by providing the services that patients need to leave, whether they go home or to rehab or other facilities if appropriate.

Sunnybrook hospital will get $1.34 million of that to fund teams in the emergency department to ensure patients have the necessary supports to be discharged home or to put supports in place to prevent the need for admissions.

“It’s certainly a new approach,” said Ontario Hospital Association chief executive Anthony Dale, who applauded the move as a way to make the health-care system more flexible.

Premier Doug Ford’s government has promised to eliminate hallway health care, which takes place because there are not enough beds in hospitals to move acute-care patients out of emergency departments. The problem steams from thousands of patients in hospitals who are no longer in need of acute care but have nowhere else to go, such as nursing homes, where there are waiting lists.

The additional cash will allow for 1.8 million more hours of personal support services and another 490,000 nursing visits along with more homemaking and meal services and supports for caregivers.