In 2024, Ontario’s healthcare crisis reached new lows: the number of patients in hospital hallways hit a record high; ER closures broke a new threshold; the waitlist for long-term care beds peaked at 48,000; a quarter of a million people languished on the surgical waitlist and 2.5 million people did not have a family doctor.
And yet, advocates say, instead of addressing this crisis the government is needlessly focused on an early election campaign.
On January 9, Ottawa community activists, hospital and long-term care staff braved frigid temperatures outside the site of the provincial budget consultation in Ottawa to demand appropriate healthcare funding. Otherwise, they warn, 2025 could be the worst year yet.
The government’s own projections show a looming shortage of 70,000 nurses and PSWs by 2027 across the healthcare sector.
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said the Ford government funds Ontario’s healthcare at the lowest rate across Canada, with per-person public sector health spending $821 less than the average of other provinces. That equates to a $12.3 billion funding shortfall across the Ontario population.
“If the Ford government simply funded public healthcare at the rate of the Canadian average, we would make significant progress in alleviating the crisis,” Mehra says. “Without ever having given the public any say over the matter, the Ford government has made political choices that have driven public and non-profit healthcare services into crisis. They are redirecting more than a billion in public funding to privatize health services per year now, rather than stabilize and restore public hospital and healthcare services.”
Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE) said that he was concerned about multiple hospitals making cutbacks due to fiscal deficits, as operational costs exceed government funding. Across the sector, hospitals face a $2 billion deficit for the current fiscal year.
“Even as we witness unprecedented ER shutdowns, even as we see a record increase in hallway medicine, even as a quarter million people languish on surgical waitlists, the Conservatives have ignored hospital deficits while pouring money into private clinics and nursing agencies,” he says.
In a province with the lowest per-person hospital spending across Canada, the lowest hospital staffing levels in the country, as well as the fewest staffed hospital beds per person, more cutbacks would be devastating, said Hurley.
The Ottawa protest by the healthcare coalition and its partners will be followed by demonstrations at provincial budget hearings in Peterborough, Hamilton and Toronto.
Slightly edited from Cupe.ca
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