Norman Miller, MPP for Parry Sound-Muskoka announced that Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare will receive $1.9 million in additional operating funding for the 2022/23 fiscal year which represents an increase of 2.7 per cent over last fiscal year.
This is part of the Ontario government’s $827 million additional investment to hospitals across the province. This will ensure all publicly funded hospitals receive a minimum two per cent increase to their operating budgets to help them better meet patient needs, while building a stronger, more resilient health care system.
In addition, as part of its plan to stay open, the government is investing $15,403,000 to provide operational funding for 33 new patient beds at MAHC and investing $550,000 in a surgical innovation project to add Elective/Trauma Orthopedics Service at MAHC in conjunction with Orillia Soldier’s Memorial Hospital.
“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our local hospitals have gone above and beyond to provide exceptional care to patients and families across Parry Sound-Muskoka,” said Miller. “Last year our government addressed the long-standing underfunding of small and medium-sized hospitals. This new investment, along with the announced funding to redevelop both hospital sites, will help ensure our local hospitals can continue to provide great care when and where people need it well into the future.”
Over the last four years, the Ontario government has made significant investments in Ontario’s hospitals as part of its plan to build a stronger, more resilient health care system that is better able to respond to crisis. This includes overall sector increases four years in a row, representing a total provincial investment of $2.5 billion since 2019.
“Ontario’s hospitals have been unwavering in their commitment to protect the health and wellbeing of Ontarians, and our government is committed to ensuring that they have the resources needed to recover from the pandemic and meet the ongoing needs of the communities they serve,” said Christine Elliott, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “By increasing investments in hospitals provincewide, our government is helping to ensure that patients have access to the high-quality care they need, when and where they need it.”
The new beds are part of a capital plan expansion with more than 50 major projects that will add 3,000 new beds over 10 years and support the continuation of over 3,100 acute and post-acute beds in hospitals and alternate health care facilities, and hundreds of new adult, paediatric and neonatal critical care beds. Since the outset of the pandemic, the government has added 777 more intensive-care unit hospital beds with the capacity to now handle 2,448 critical care patients.
The funding for the surgical innovation project came from the government’s expanded $86.2 million Surgical Innovation Fund. More than 200 proposals were submitted for review by hospitals across the province and 187 projects were approved. These projects focus on training of nurses and allied health staff, purchasing and upgrading diagnostic imaging technology and operating room equipment, and completing small capital projects and will provide hospitals with the flexibility they need to perform more surgeries and procedures as they continue to ramp up non-urgent and non-emergent surgeries.
