The union representing 40,000 Ontario hospital workers says the situation at hospitals will only get worse if thousands of beds and staff are not added over the next four years. These beds and manpower will be additional to the current plan.
Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and CUPE’s hospital sector research department presented a report Thursday morning. The report is titled ‘The Hospital Crisis: No Capacity, No Plan, No Beds’.
Based on the union’s latest data, they calculate that hospital beds and staff will need to increase by 22 per cent over the next four years to accommodate Ontario’s growing population and sicker populations. This means that in addition to creating 8 thousand 170 new beds, another 60 thousand will have to be appointed.
According to them, 2,270 new beds need to be created in Toronto alone. 11 thousand 960 new workers will be appointed.
At a press conference at Queen’s Park, Hurley said, “We have to turn away seriously ill people a lot of the time.” The number of people who are not receiving hospital services is also not small. Many are dying while waiting for treatment. Our emergency department is closing. A Tsunami of an Aging and Growing Population Threatens Ontario’s Hospital Workers. If you take things like covid, RSV, flu into consideration, then you will understand that the health care system has gone to the edge of the abyss.
Ontario hospitals have 18 per cent more workers per capita than other provinces, according to union data. The labor shortage is affecting the entire sector. Support services, intensive care, operating rooms and emergency rooms are understaffed.
The government is building capacity across the province. About 60 hospitals are going to start functioning in the next ten years. This will create hundreds of thousands of new hospital beds in Ontario. This will ensure that Ontarians get the health care they need now and in the future.
Since 2018, the government has increased the health care budget by more than 16 billion dollars. Our healthcare workforce has also increased. The number of nurses increased by 63,000, new doctors were created by 8,000 and hospital beds increased by 3,500.
