Under funding in high growth communities leads Headwaters to join alliance

Headwaters Health Care Centre and the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance are pleased to announce that Headwaters is joining the alliance.

The GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance is the collective voice of acute care and mental health hospitals across the high growth communities in the GTA - from Oshawa to Burlington and north to Newmarket and now across to Dufferin and Caledon. Alliance hospitals provide care to Ontarians living in the fastest growing communities in Ontario where more than 25% of Ontarians reside and that account for more than half of Ontario's annual population growth.

"The alliance is working on behalf of Ontarians living in high population growth communities to secure needed growth funding for health care services," said Bob Baynham, CEO of Headwaters Health Care Centre. "Working with alliance partners we will seek to improve local access to medical services and develop clinical services appropriate for our hospital and community. To achieve this we need the Government of Ontario to not only provide adequate hospital growth funding but also allocate provincial health care funds to the new Local Health Integration Networks on the basis of population size, growth and characteristics."

Currently, Ontario's hospitals are not funded on the basis of population size and the needs of the local residents. As a result, there are significant and growing gaps in per capita funding for hospital services in high-growth regions like Dufferin- Caledon. The per capita funding for hospital care in the Central West LHIN is $280 lower than the provincial average. This means that residents may wait longer for hospital care or by-pass their local hospital and seek care outside their communities away from the support of family and friends.

"With Dufferin and Caledon's population growing at the rate they are today, we are facing the same pressures as other alliance partners that are providing care in fast growing communities," said the Hon. John McDermid, chair Headwaters Health Care Centre. "By working with other high growth hospitals and health care providers we look forward to improving local access to hospital care for the growing number of residents living in the many communities we serve."

"The alliance is very pleased to have Headwaters join our alliance of hospitals," said Kirk Corkery, chair of the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance. "By working together, and now as part of a larger alliance, we look forward to bringing about improvements to Ontario's health care system that will mean better care close to home for the residents of Dufferin and Caledon and other fast growing communities in Ontario."