TORONTO - One in three Ontario residents is currently fighting a chronic disease and the government must act urgently to respond before it has a "full-blown crisis" on its hands, said an annual report released Monday by the Ontario Health Quality Council.

While Ontario is making some slow progress on fighting chronic disease it remains a huge burden on the health-care system and should be the top challenge for the government to tackle, said chairman Ray Hession.

"We are facing a major challenge that's growing day by day; we need to start dealing with this challenge urgently, decisively and effectively," he said.

The group said asthma, arthritis, diabetes and heart failure are among the diseases that top the government's list of areas that need more attention, even though at least 60 per cent of health-care costs are already associated with chronic diseases.

Hession compared the scope of the worsening situation to climate change, and said that with an aging population increasingly stressing the health-care system, action needs to be taken now to fight conditions that are often preventable or treatable.

"In the context of health care, this is an inconvenient truth," Hession said, a reference to the documentary chronicling former U.S. vice-president Al Gore's campaign against global warming.

"Ontario is facing a daunting challenge to prevent, reduce and better manage chronic diseases."

Hession said almost four in five Ontario residents over the age of 65 have at least one chronic disease, and of them, 70 per cent suffer from two or more conditions.

He said obesity is fuelling the rise of many diseases, and that simply getting people to eat better, stay active and giving them safe and meaningful work would prevent 80 per cent of the cases of coronary heart diseases, Type 2 diabetes, and over 85 per cent of lung cancer cases.

There are a staggering 50,000 new cases of Type 2 diabetes diagnosed in Ontario every year, he added.

"Preventing these cases alone would free up about 2,900 hospital beds ... per year in Ontario,"' Hession said.

"This is the rough equivalent of the number of beds found in the three largest acute-care hospitals in Ontario."

The group said it did find some good news after reviewing the health-care system, including increased access to the five services highlighted in Ontario's wait-time strategy.

Hession also said he's pleased that research into teen smoking shows that the number of 12 to 19-year-olds who smoke daily has declined, down to one in 17 in 2005 from one in nine in 2000.