[Sharon]

Health Care Funding, Priority Setting and Allocation of Scarce Resources – choose from below for your discussion:

The following are some questions to consider and to guide discussions during WEEK 6:

• How are decisions regarding scarce resources made in Ontario’s health care system and at the organizational level?
• How should these decisions be made?
• Reflect on the process of allocation in your health field/organization.  Discuss and provide examples that demonstrate who makes the decisions and how do they decide?  Also comment on this process and ways that it could be improved.
• What measures would you use to determine that the allocation process was fair and equitable?
• Has your organization ever decreased services? If so, how was that decision made? How were RPNs involved in the decision? What would you need to know to assess the appropriateness of that decision?
• Share with us your approach to determining how much time to spend with each patient/client/resident.

[Valerie]

Decisions in regards to finance in health care begins at the top with money coming from the federal government. Each province is then allotted a specific amount of money. This provincial money then becomes parceled off to hospitals, nursing homes, and community care. Once this money is portioned out, managers then decide where, when, and how health dollars are to be spent. This is very much a top-down approach.

Funding decisions should really come from the ground level and make their way to government to truly know where the needs of our country, provinces, and communities lie.

I work in the education system tending to the medical and educational needs of special needs students. It is really hard to see some days just how poorly cate for kids with special needs is funded, and the detrimental effects ot has on a daily basis as well as over time. Currently schools only receive funding to hire enough workers for children diagnosed with very low functioning autism or indigenous children with low-functioning autism. This greatly benefits students who have access to this care, but allows too many kids to fall through the cracks. I want to advocate to broaden the standards of which children receive help and help to ensure fairness and equality. Myself and another colleague who is an R.N. push for better and more equitable care of all identified students.

[Author]

Posts