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On February 25, workers represented by the Ontario Coalition of Hospital Unions (OCHU) held a demonstration outside Guelph General Hospital. As working conditions and quality of care plummet, the union called on the Ford government and election candidates to focus on solving the public health care crisis. They urged the government not to focus solely on U.S. tariffs.
In 2018, Premier Doug Ford made a promise to Ontarians, millions of patients and tens of thousands of health care workers: that he would fix the province's health system. The looming crisis finally reared its head during the COVID-19 pandemic. Cracks in the system became gaping holes, and the promise was not fulfilled.
Guelph General Hospital, and many others like it in Ontario, are facing a lack of beds, forcing hospital workers to provide care in hallways. Because of a shortage of nurses and personal support workers (PSWs), many emergency rooms now close for several hours or entire days.
The problem is particularly pronounced in rural areas. Even when ERs are open, a lack of doctors means that patients wait hours on end to receive treatment.
In an interview with The North Star, OCHU President Michael Hurley underscored the urgency of the situation:
“Unless we address this staffing shortage by retaining the staff that we do have and recruiting people into nursing, medical, PSW and other programs, this will intensify. In fact, the government’s own stats suggest that we will be 70,000 PSWs, RNs, RPNs short by 2027. If that is the case, you can expect the ER closures to worsen.”
For Hurley, ER closures are not a new problem. “In the last three years [...] it’s developed into a crisis of repeated closures." He added, “Ontario hospitals have the fewest staff, and the fewest beds of any hospital system in Canada.”
“In Ontario, if we want to get the surgical backlog dealt with, and we want to get the people on stretchers in hospital hallways, we need to spend about $2 billion extra each year on Ontario hospitals.”
According to the Canadian Union of Public Employees, to which OCHU belongs, 50,000 people are currently waiting for long-term care beds, and a quarter of a million people are on surgery waitlists.
The Ontario Medical Association, which represents the province's physicians and medical students, announced that the number of Ontarians without a family doctor could increase from 2.5 million to 4.4 million by next year if the provincial government does not take action.
Hurley finds the Ford government's recent health care election promise to be insufficient:
“It’s better than no plan, but the thing that this government doesn’t want to do is factor population growth and the aging of the population on demand for health services into its calculations around the need for additional staff, for funding," he remarked.
"They came up with a plan a couple days before the election, and when the Ontario Medical Association points out that this plan doesn’t take this into consideration, the result is that there will still be a couple million people without doctors.”
Hospital unions are demanding government action. Each union has written letters to the Premier and the Health Minister, which have fallen on deaf ears. Rather than continue talking to the wall, the OCHU is campaigning across the province to appeal to the public.
For Hurley, this is about "dealing with workload concerns in a constructive way that’s also in the interest of the patients."
"More nurses means better care, fewer medical errors, fewer deaths,” he added.
Beyond the call to elect a responsive government, Hurley urges people to consider joining the Ontario Health Coalition, an organization fighting for high-quality health care in Ontario. Just as the unions have done, he says the public should show health care workers they care through solidarity actions, and open demonstrations of support.