April 13th, 2016

NDP demands Premier answer for worsening crisis in Ontario hospitals

France Gélinas, the Ontario NDP’s health critic, demanded Premier Wynne answer for the Liberal government’s continued cuts to hospital care, following the release of an Ontario Health Coalition report that shows the province’s hospitals are facing a deepening crisis.

“Under this Premier’s watch, the crisis of cuts inside our hospitals is only getting worse.  Hundreds of nurses and frontline health care workers laid-off. Beds closed. And rural communities forced to fight just to keep the doors open and the lights on in their local hospitals,” Gélinas said.

“Why is this Premier so determined to keep cutting hospital care?”

Advocates for public health care released a new report this morning that lays out, in painstaking detail, the full-extent of Liberal cuts to Ontario’s hospitals. The report, Beyond Limits: Ontario’s Deepening Hospital Cuts Crisis, confirms what patients are seeing across Ontario.

“The Premier likes to deny that any hospital cuts are happening under her watch. But the Premier is fooling no one.  Patients, families, frontline hospital workers and administrators as well as local health coalitions see right through the Liberals’ talking points,” Gélinas said.

“St. Joseph’s Health Care in London says they’ve seen what amounts to a $36.5 million cut over the past four years, under this Liberal government. And those kinds of cuts mean more bed closures, longer wait times for patients, and fewer frontline nurses and health care workers.”

“Why is this Premier putting hospitals in the terrible position of making decisions based on dollars and deficits, rather than what’s best for patients and their families?,” Gélinas asked.