Liberal government indifferent to impact of nursing cuts on patient care

QUEEN’S PARK — As Ontario hospitals continue laying off more nurses almost daily, NDP Health critic France Gélinas asked the Minister of Health what it will take for the government to get the message that these job hurt patients and that these cuts should stop.

“During the last general election, the Premier and her Minister of Health said that they would not cut front-line care and that they would not cut nursing positions. Right now, hospitals are laying off nurses almost every single day,” said Gélinas, MPP for Nickel Belt. “Last week alone, we learned that Sudbury will lose 42 nurses and the Children's Hospital in Ottawa is cutting 50 registered nurses. And in Cambridge, it’s 22 registered nurses.”    

The Minister of Health dismissed the layoffs, and the impact to patients, as “an ebb and flow that takes place regularly.” 

 

“We all know that it is patients that will pay the price of these nursing cuts,” said Gélinas. “Cutting 50 nurses at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario will leave sick kids with less care. Seventy-five positions are being eliminated in North Bay hospital. In Sarnia, it’s 39 nurses who are being cut, and nearly 40 positions will be lost in Timmins.”

Gélinas again emphasized that the people of Ontario were told during the last election these cuts would not happen, but they are happening. 

“Every family understands that fewer nurses mean less care, and longer wait times, for the people who need it,” said Gélinas 'How many more nurses will lose their jobs and how many patients will suffer before the Liberals stop these painful cuts to our front-line nurses?”