Stiles: Ford’s Conservatives leaving Ottawa region without health care

OTTAWA – Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition NDP, revealed the many overlapping ways in which Ford’s Conservatives are leaving the Ottawa region without access to health care at a press conference today.

“The Conservatives’ health care crisis is getting more serious by the day,” Stiles said. “One local ER has already been forced to close five times this summer due to a staffing shortage. We’re seeing historically long wait times. As many as 150,000 Ottawa residents don’t have access to primary care. It’s shameful, and Ford’s decision to dismantle public health care is only making things worse.”

“Just yesterday, I knocked on the door of a retired paramedic who told me he was forced to wait four hours in the ER – and then four more – when he was experiencing heart attack symptoms,” she said. “He said he’s never seen it so bad.”

While the Conservatives are running Sean Webster, a former lobbyist for big oil and Galen Weston’s Shoppers Drug Mart, in the by-election in Kanata—Carleton, the Ontario NDP candidate, Melissa Coenraad, is a front-line health care worker who has seen the impacts of the Conservatives’ health care crisis first-hand.

“I’ve been working in health care for 20 years and I’ve never seen the system in such a crisis,” Coenraad said. “Every day, I see burnt out nurses, doctors, and other health care workers. We’ve been forced to work double shifts, cut vacations short, and spend less time with our families just to keep the lights on. I’m running for MPP because I’m fed up with the state of health care in Ontario.”

Stiles, Coenraad, and the Ontario NDP are calling on Ford’s Conservatives to stop privatizing health care, and invest in the public system to reduce wait times, get patients access to primary care, stabilize the workforce, and fund public hospitals to keep operating rooms running on evenings and weekends. The government could start by dropping its appeal of Bill 124.

“I can tell you what we need -- more funding, more staff, and the immediate repeal of Bill 124. What we certainly don’t need is privatization. I can’t wait to get to Queen’s Park and send Doug Ford this message over and over till he gets it,” said Coenraad.

“Melissa is exactly who we need at Queen’s Park, a frontline health care worker who gets it,” Stiles said. “She gets the plight of nurses. She gets that people in this community are feeling scared. This election is between the Official Opposition NDP and Ford’s Conservatives, and the choice is clear: Melissa Coenraad.”

Stiles and Coenraad were joined by Ottawa NDP MPPs Joel Harden (Ottawa Centre) and Chandra Pasma (Ottawa West—Nepean).

QUICK FACTS

• Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital has closed more than a half-dozen times in recent months
• Paramedic “Level Zeros” (no ambulances available) more than doubled in 2022
• Staffing crisis in a ‘critical state’ for Ottawa area hospitals
• Up to 150,000 Ottawa residents don’t have access to primary care
• Just 28% of Ontario patients were admitted to the hospital from emergency within the eight-hour target time in May 2023