Liberals pass NDP motion for hospital help Tuesday, break promise Wednesday

On Tuesday, a motion from NDP Leader Andrea Horwath passed unanimously, allocating more than $30 million to ease hospital overcrowding and gridlock in Brampton – but Wednesday morning, Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals made it clear they will break that promise.

“This is a horrible disappointment for patients and families in Brampton,” said Horwath. “Yesterday, Kathleen Wynne and her Liberals stood and voted in favour of an additional $30.2 million to deal with immediate overcrowding and open two mothballed operating rooms. But today, they claim they’re already doing enough, and it sounds like they won’t be coming through with that money at all.

“We can’t let Wynne and the Liberals keep letting patients down like this.”

Horwath's motion allocated $8 million to Brampton Civic Hospital to cope with overcrowding and add much-needed beds; $3 million to finally open two mothballed operating rooms that were built but never funded; and $19.2 million to fill funding shortfalls at Peel Memorial Centre. The funding needs were pegged by the William Osler Health System in an internal memo, which the NDP obtained and released earlier this fall.

“Brampton Civic has already been forced to call code gridlock eight times this year,” said Horwath. “Those patients who are laying in hallways at Brampton Civic today, all those that will arrive in the ER in the coming days, and all those waiting too long for surgery – they need this money to flow, and the gridlock to be eased. The Liberal government voted yes, but is now refusing to sign the cheque. That kind of abuse of people’s trust is disgusting.”

The Emergency Department at Brampton Civic Hospital was built to serve 90,000 visits each year, but saw more than 138,000 patients last year. Between April 2016 and April 2017, Brampton Civic Hospital treated 4,352 people on stretchers in hallways instead of patient rooms because the hospital was overcrowded. Peel Memorial, an already overflowing urgent care centre that’s being forced to close at 10 p.m. due to lack of resources is in similar dire straits.

The hospital overcrowding and hallway medicine crisis began when the last Conservative government closed 28 hospitals and fired 6,000 nurses. The Liberals have followed in those footsteps with years of funding freezes and cuts, including a $300 million shortfall this year.

The NDP has also revealed shocking overcrowding and overcapacity statistics for hospitals all over the province, revealing the extent and severity of the overcrowding crisis.