Tuesday 30 March 2010

Local health integration networks

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: My question is for the Premier. Yesterday, Premier McGuinty's excuse for breaking his own law and cancelling the review of the LHINs was that his unaccountable, unelected and anonymous bureaucracies have yet to take on all of their responsibilities. But according to the home page of the Ontario Local Health Integration Networks, the LHINs took, "full responsibility for health care services in their communities" by April 1, 2007.

So you want to fire the Ombudsman, you want to cancel the public review of the LHINs. What do you have to hide?

Hon. Dalton McGuinty: To the Minister of Health.

Hon. Deborah Matthews: I welcome the opportunity to talk about the decision to delay the review of the LHINs until they have had the full mandated responsibilities.

As I said earlier today and other days, the importance of the LHINs cannot be overstated. The future of health care demands that we integrate services at the local level. We cannot continue with siloed services where the hospitals do one thing, the community care does another and long-term care does another without the integration that really works for the patients to smooth the transition from one level of care to another. It's important that we take the review of the LHINs very seriously. When the legislation was passed, I think it's fair to say that we underestimated-

The Speaker (Hon. Steve Peters): Thank you. Supplementary?

Ms. Lisa MacLeod: I would like to point out this is the seventh consecutive question we have asked on the LHIN s that the Premier has refused to answer. Why is he letting the minister respond for his words in this House?

The LHINs say that they have assumed responsibility for their full mandate three years ago. Premier McGuinty has become so tired and arrogant that he can't be bothered to get his story straight with his accomplices at the LHIN. Meanwhile, the culture of rot is spreading across the McGuinty Liberal government. You want to fire the Ombudsman, you want to cancel the public review of the LHINs and you have run out of excuses. Will you scrap your ill-conceived schemes and let Ontario patients see exactly what you are trying to hide in these bureaucracies?

Hon. Deborah Matthews: Just to correct the member opposite, the LHINs have not yet assumed full responsibility for all of the aspects of care. Indeed, they have responsibility for long-term care this coming July. So that is in fact after the deadline of the review in the act.

We don't think it's in the best interest of the people to Ontario to embark on a review of an organization that has not yet taken on their full mandate. It will be an all-party review, a select committee of the Legislature that will look at the act to determine what improvements we need to make to the act to provide the kind of integrated care we are determined to provide.

But we are continuing to work to improve the LHINs as we go along. KPMG has completed a review of the LHINs, that report is posted online; 27 recommendations, they're all being implemented.