Cardiac Fitness Institute needs to be saved: Horwath

Ontario NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was in London Monday speaking with patients of the Cardiac Fitness Institute (CFI), and demanded that Premier Kathleen Wynne do the right thing and stop the planned closure of the medical heart-health program.

Last week the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care confirmed that the Liberal government will stand by and do nothing to save the CFI, after the program was put on the chopping block thanks to a lack of provincial funding.

“Some of the people I spoke with today said that they wouldn’t be alive right now without the help they get at CFI,” said Horwath. “It’s simply heartbreaking to think of taking a great program, a life-saving program, and shutting it down. The money spent on this program is worth it – because it delivers a better quality of life for the Londoners who count on it, because of the lives it has undoubtedly saved, and because it helps keep people healthy instead of having them end up in the emergency room, or on the operating table.

“We can’t let Kathleen Wynne let London families down any more. There’s still hope we can save this critical part of cardiac rehabilitation.

After the last Conservative government laid off 6,000 nurses and closed 28 hospitals, the Liberal government forced more cuts and layoffs and put the squeeze on hospitals through underfunding. Since Wynne became premier and froze hospital budgets, London Health Sciences Centre, which operates the CFI, has been forced to announce cuts totaling $141 million, the equivalent of 488 full-time jobs. The hospital has unacceptably long wait-times for things like diagnostic tests and some surgeries and, due to severe overcrowding, patients are being forced to receive their medical care on stretchers in hallways and waiting rooms.

Horwath was joined Monday by a number of patients, as well as London NDP MPPs Teresa Armstrong and Peggy Sattler, both of whom have been fighting to save the CFI since news of its impending closure hit patients who are recovering from heart attacks or are living with heart disease, and count on the program to prevent a cardiac emergency.

Horwath has announced her party’s plan to undo the damage done to Ontario’s health care system by past Conservative and Liberal governments, committing to fund hospitals, at minimum, to the rate of inflation, population growth, and to meet the unique needs of each community. Horwath has also promised that an NDP government would implement a universal pharmacare pogrom – a drug plan that covers everyone regardless of age or income, giving people better health as well as less stress and financial savings.

“I hear the frustration and worry that people have with our deteriorated health care system,” said Horwath. “But here’s thing – it doesn’t have to be this way. With the political will to make health care a priority, we can save programs like the CFI.”