Sources told the Star the former TD Bank chief economist’s 700-page report on reforming public services devotes 100 of its 362 recommendations to health, which accounts for 42 per cent of program spending.
The findings will be unveiled Wednesday at a Queen’s Park lock-up for the media and opposition parties before being made public at 2:15 p.m.
While some recommendations would be politically difficult to implement — like removing coverage of certain procedures from OHIP — Health Minister Deb Matthews warned Tuesday “this is a time of significant change in health care.”
“We know there are places in the health-care system where we are spending money that does not need to be spent,” said Matthews, who is pushing reforms in an “action plan” she unveiled two weeks ago.
Drummond wants to fold all 36 public health units and 200 family health teams into the 14 local health integration networks (LHINs) in a streamlining bid to save money.
Other cutback suggestions include curbing the number of non-emergency Cesarean sections and hysterectomies; reducing the amount of arthroscopic knee surgeries performed; limiting some medical tests; and improving preventative health-promotion programs.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan admitted much of the 6-centimetre-thick study will come as a wake-up call to Ontarians.
“It is very sweeping and it will be very controversial,” Duncan told reporters before Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
“Listen, (Drummond) brings an economist’s point of view to this. I don’t think he spent a whole lot of time figuring out who he’s going to make mad and not mad,” the treasurer said.
“I expect you’re going to see some pretty strong reaction from just about everybody,” he said, noting “the largest focus” in the report is health care.
“Some of the things he talks about are going to take a few years to implement if you decide to do them.”
With the province striving to pay down a $16 billion deficit by 2017-18, Drummond’s four-person commission recommends annual budget increases be limited to just 0.8 per cent.
That means an overall hike of $6.3 billion over the next five years. But spending has skyrocketed more than six times that much — $40.5 billion — in the past five years. The budget was $83.5 billion in 2005-06 and $124 billion last year.
A sombre Premier Dalton McGuinty said Drummond’s “job is to advise and we decide.”
“He is doing exactly what we need him to do in an objective, dispassionate and analytical and … clinical way to put forward various options for us to entertain,” McGuinty said after a tour of Toronto’s Xtreme Labs, which creates apps for iPads, BlackBerrys and Android devices.
As previously disclosed by the Star, Drummond’s report also urges numerous changes to education, including raising the primary school limit from 20 students a class, revamping full-day kindergarten, ending the fifth-year “victory lap” in high school, and cancelling the new 30 per cent cut in college and university tuition.
The only new spending recommended is a boost to aboriginal education to correct the lack of adequate schools on First Nation reserves.
Duncan has been asked by McGuinty to tackle executive compensation in the broader public service, where hospital CEOs, university and college presidents, among others, routinely earn high six-figure salaries.
The premier said he wants those at the top to “lead by example.”
“We did freeze compensation for non-bargained staff over the last two years,” Duncan said.
Asked if all salaries and bonuses could be frozen for executives, he said: “Yes, that’s on the table.”
Ontario Hospital Association vice-president Anthony Dale said the province’s 151 hospital corporations are already at work on pay reforms to be released next month.
“We asked former deputy prime minister John Manley to look into executive compensation for hospital executives and we are pressing ahead with a … compensation framework,” he said.
Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees (Newmarket-Aurora) said the chickens are coming home to roost after an eight-year Liberal spending spree.
“There would not be a need for the Drummond report if not for the mismanagement and overspending of the McGuinty government over the last number of years,” Klees said.
NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) said now is not the time for “deep, drastic cuts to some of our most vital services.”
“Our communities need help,” said Natyshak.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Tanya Talaga, Robert Benzie
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