Ontario Hospital Crisis Province-Wide and By Community
While there is an international crisis brought on by the pandemic, the depth of Ontario’s hospital crisis is extreme comparatively, and it is not inevitable. Successive Ontario governments have pursued the most radical hospital downsizing policy of the country, and among virtually all developed nations. This does not excuse the current government. When the Ford government took power, it cut hospital funding to below the rate of inflation -- meaning real dollar cuts – to force continued downsizing leading into the pandemic despite clear evidence that the hospital cuts had gone too far. Wage restraint legislation that caps wage increases in public health care services at 1 percent while inflation is running at more than 6 percent continues to inflame the deep sense of anger, burnout and injustice among health care professionals who have risked their lives for us throughout the pandemic. The Ford government has remained intransigent, refusing to lift the wage cap despite the unprecedented staffing crisis across hospitals, long-term care and home care. Ford’s fiscal plan was – and remains – to keep hospital costs down to help fund tax cuts.
- Ontario Health Coalition calculations from: Canadian Institute for Health Information, Data Table: Hospital Beds Staffed and in Operation 2020-2021.
- In addition, hospital professionals report that MRI shifts overnight have been left unstaffed due to the staffing crisis.
- Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), a pediatric hospital and research centre in Ottawa, is facing unprecedented volumes in its emergency department this fall, with many patients admitted to hospital waiting more than 30 hours for an available bed, said president and CEO Alex Munter.
- The Chesley Hospital emergency department closed on October 7 for multiple weeks with a scheduled reopening date of Dec. 2.