Does it cost more to perform some surgeries in hospital than community clinics? Absolutely, unless you’re putting out false facts to push your political agenda, which plenty of people are doing right now.
As the old saying goes, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts — so let me lay some out.
Dr. Bob Bell, a retired surgeon who once headed up the University Health Network, the largest hospital in Ontario, and was deputy minister of health from 2014-18, is sharing what he calls facts, but they don’t tell the whole story. Bell, whatever his skills as a surgeon, was not a good health administrator and holds to a view of health care that wants as much as possible performed inside hospitals that, despite increased funding, are overwhelmed.
Bell’s repeated claim is that the Ford government’s plan to allow private clinics to perform cataract surgery will see them paid a 33% premium, something he thinks is pure profit. Under the Ford government’s plan, clinics will be paid a flat fee of $605 per cataract surgery while hospitals are paid a flat fee of just $455, Bell says.
If you took Bell’s claims at face value, then it would be outrageous, but he is using false numbers and he’s not telling the whole story.
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