Ontario plans to hire more nurses, reduce wait times and spend more money to improve access to health care in remote areas, but the $96-billion budget handed down Tuesday doesn't deliver the major funding increase to nursing homes advocates called for.

Health-care spending, which accounts for nearly half of every dollar the province spends on programs, is expected to increase by $2.3 billion to $40.4 billion in the next fiscal year, reaching $44.7 billion in three years.

"Our strong health-care system is one of our key competitive advantages," Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said Tuesday in his budget speech. "It helps make the province an attractive place for business to invest and create jobs."

But ballooning health-care costs mean taxpayers won't see an end to the much-despised health tax, which provided the province with $70 million more in revenue this year than forecast, Duncan said.

"We've made the choices we've made because they're the right choices," he said. "We continue to invest every penny and more in health care. And you know what? We think it's the right way to go."

9,000 new nurses

Nursing will be a major focus for the province, which plans to spend more than $500 million over the next three years to hire 9,000 more nurses — 2,000 of whom will be placed in nursing homes over the next four years.

Another $38 million will be used to create 25 new nurse-practitioner-led clinics over the next three years and to extend a program to provide jobs for nursing graduates, a move Health Minister George Smitherman announced earlier this month.

Rural and "under-serviced" communities are expected to benefit from $53 million over three years that will add 50 additional Family Health Teams to the current 150. A program that provides grants to help northerners access health-care services will get a $13-million boost this year.

The Liberals, who've been urged to dramatically increase spending in long-term care homes, are promising $107 million over the next three years to hire 2,500 personal support workers in nursing homes, in addition to the boost in nursing care, and $278 million for other related programs. They're also allocating $700 million over three years to provide home care and other services for seniors still living at home.

Long-term care funding 'threadbare,' NDP says

NDP Leader Howard Hampton called it a "threadbare" plan that fell far short of the minimum 3.5 hours of care that workers and families were asking for.

"The McGuinty government promised a revolution in long-term care," said Hampton, who made an impassioned plea on behalf of nursing-home residents during last fall's election campaign.

"The need is identified at $586 million to improve the quality of long-term care. Only $35 million is invested. That will buy an extra six minutes a day — six minutes a day — of nursing care, which
means our seniors are going to continue to suffer from a lack of quality of long-term care."

Concerns over long-term care prompted Smitherman to muse openly in February about test-driving an adult diaper to determine whether it was adequate for residents in long-term care. His remarks drew widespread criticism from groups who said seniors in Ontario nursing homes are wallowing for hours on end in soiled diapers because there aren't enough staff to change them more often.

The province's budget also targets disease screening and wait times over the next three years, including $190 million for chronic-disease prevention, starting with diabetes, and $154 million to boost early detection of breast, cervical and colorectal cancers. 

Meanwhile, emergency rooms will receive $180 million over three years to shorten wait times, and hospitals in high-density areas will receive $120 million to help cope with high demand.

The province is also providing $64 million for additional general surgeries and $13 million to operate five additional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines.