How do we stop the erosion of health care?

With Ontario emerging from five months of provincial lockdown, it’s time to look back at how far we’ve come – but also at the state of the road we’ve all been on. Although Ontario’s health system is said to be one of the best in the world, it continues to struggle. Decades of underfunding made our journey together this year more difficult than necessary.

When Ontario was banned again in April, those of us who work in the healthcare sector supported that call: the OHA, the OMA, the MLPAO, and many others. We could all clearly see how dangerous we were at our capacity limit. Rapidly rising COVID-19 cases could easily overwhelm our intensive care units, test centers and laboratories.

The ruptures in the Ontario healthcare system can be traced back several decades. The Auditor General’s Special Report on COVID-19 Preparation and Management last November found evidence of 25 years of chronic underfunding. Several governments have repeatedly failed to adequately support health workers and fund our health system. Legislators have been advised of growing concerns about funding, ICU space, segregated health information systems, disjointed laboratory networks, outbreak capacity spikes, and more. Instead, they decided to delay. SARS was a precursor to our current state – we have been warned.

COVID-19 is having a devastating impact on health systems around the world. In the initially weakened systems, however, it was far more serious: so close to a breaking point that it was impossible to withstand loads. Ontario’s COVID-19 pandemic response stumbles upon chronic neglect of a health system that is broken in too many places.

• Seventy percent of medical laboratories in Ontario entered the pandemic with a lack of staff. That too is a decades-old problem. The shortage of Medical Laboratory Technologists (MLTs) has increased every year since seven MLT programs were closed in the 1990s by the then-NDP government on the mistaken assumption that instrument upgrades would reduce the need for MLTs. We see a 46 percent gap between job vacancies and the number of new entrants.

• 70 percent of medical decisions depend on laboratory results, according to CDC. Without the analysis of blood, tissues and fluids by medical laboratory personnel, doctors would not be able to diagnose and monitor infections, cancer, pregnancy, heart attacks and much more. Laboratory services show whether any prescribed medication is working, what blood type a patient needs, or whether a virus is present.

• Forty-three percent of practicing MLTs can retire in the next four to eight years. 86 percent of laboratory employees suffer from burnout, which is exhausted after a year of constant testing. 42 percent are considering early retirement / leaving the job or stress / illness. There are not enough MLTs to fill vacancies and more positions may remain unfilled every year.

How long will patients and doctors be willing to wait for the results of critical tests such as cancer diagnoses or blood transfusions? In the operating room or after trauma, how do patients get the treatment they need when it matters most? How will infection protection be possible, how will we identify and isolate cases of spread in the next pandemic?

Laboratory specialists take great care of their patients. They do whatever it takes to get the job done. Fewer and fewer teams, however, will significantly affect the functionality of the laboratory and provide timely results. Laboratory professionals are concerned about the fact that they may no longer be able to work without compromising patent maintenance. It should affect us all.

With articles on our COVID-19 response shared on the BBC, Fox News, CNN and others, Ontario is famous around the world today for all the wrong reasons. As we begin reopening, it is important to take up the lessons of the past. While the road we’ve traveled this year would have always been difficult, we’ve been hampered by the decision-making of decades of provincial governments choosing to delay rather than repair. We must hold these governments accountable for their actions; do not point a finger, but rather determine a way forward.

Ontario’s healthcare system is full of incredibly hard working professionals in dire need of resources and support. Lab professionals, nurses, PSWs, respiratory therapists, radiation technologists, doctors, porters and paramedics are tired after fighting a pandemic in a broken system.

The deterioration is gradual – through hundreds of postponements, budget cuts, inactivity, canceled funding, relinquishment of responsibility. How do we ensure that health care does not deteriorate further? As many of us return to normal, lab professionals prepare for the next wave with the eventual resumption of operations. Our lives will return to normal, but yours will never.

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Michelle Hoad is CEO of the Medical Laboratory Professionals’ Association of Ontario

source https://dailyhealthynews.ca/how-do-we-stop-the-erosion-of-health-care/