Ontarians file record number of complaints to patient ombudsman in 2023-24

Ontario's patient ombudsman received a record number of complaints last fiscal year, with quality of health care and communication among top concerns.

In its latest annual report, the patient ombudsman says it received 4,429 complaints from patients, residents and caregivers about public hospitals, long-term care homes, home care and community surgical and diagnostic centres in 2023-2024. That number includes more than 400 complaints involving mental health and addiction services.

The total compares to the 4,388 complaints it received in 2022-2023. The office, which opened in 2016, was set up to help resolve health care complaints from Ontario patients.

Patient Ombudsman Craig Thompson said in an interview with CBC News on Wednesday that the growing number of complaints is not necessarily bad news.

"I'm very optimistic that things are getting better and particularly because of the results that we see with our work," he said.

"Complaints going up for me has never been a metric of whether something's getting worse or better. I've always believed that a healthy system will have complaints because that's one of our best feedback mechanisms. And so I've always wanted to see more complaints. I don't see it as getting worse."

The report says the patient ombudsman also resolved 4,575 complaints, which includes cases from the previous year, and opened six investigations, two of which were completed.

But it says it tracked a growing number of complaints about obstetrical and gynecological care, including complaints about "insensitivity, poor communication and lack of responsive care for pregnancy complications, miscarriages, difficult births and sexual assaults." 

Because its mandate expanded under new legislation, it also received complaints about community surgical and diagnostic centres, with most complaints about these clinics concerning communication, delays, problems with communicating test results and "insensitive, disrespectful care."

Thompson said the report highlights continued problems in emergency departments, discharging patients from hospitals and no trespass orders.

But he added that if an interaction leaves patients with the impression that staff are being insensitive or are appearing not to care, then "that just for me just sort of indicates that there's something not working" in that situation.

"People who are drawn to the health care world are caring people that want to do their best and to help patients, residents and long term care and their families. And so when you see that there's a failure at that sort of fundamental level, it really makes us take notice and wonder what is causing that."

Thompson said the office always looks at both sides of the complaint. It gives the complainant a chance to tell their story, then goes to the organization to find out what its experience was and if there was a breakdown in the relationship between health care provider and client. The office then tries to find out what needs to be done to address the complaint.

"Fundamentally, we should be curious as to why that happens and try to make changes so that it doesn't happen again," he said.