Protests disrupt Toronto hospital while Ford refuses to act

QUEEN’S PARK — Hospitals in Toronto are already being forced to cancel health care services as they brace for another convoy to descend on Ontario. In Toronto, Women’s College Hospital has just announced it will have to shut down its urgent care clinic Saturday.

Procedures have already been impacted in Ottawa, where Radio-Canada reported Thursday that a four-year-old child with cancer was blocked from his chemotherapy.

“We are intensely worried about patients accessing care, and health care workers getting safely to and from work,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.

Ford appears to be encouraging more convoys to come to Ontario, telling radio station 900 CHML: “People want to come down and protest, god bless them. I understand their frustration, I really do.”

For months, Horwath and the NDP have been fighting for her Safety Zones legislation, which would ban anti-public-health protests from designated zones around hospitals, schools and vaccine clinics and other health facilities.