By Staff
February 24th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Ontario’s health care crisis is deepening at a time when the province already has the fewest hospital beds per capita in the country and the lowest per capita health care funding of any province.
The province has the fewest hospital staff per patient in Canada. As a result of being funded under their operating costs, Ontario hospitals have a combined deficit of over $800 million this year.
A health care system in crisis at a time when Premier Doug Ford sent $200 cheques to almost every person in the province.
Hospital workers, health care advocates, and community supporters will make a statement outside St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto opposing the elimination of at least 750 positions—cuts at a hospital that is already understaffed – that will increase patient wait times and affect the quality of care.
1,850 are on stretchers at hospitals every single day
“These job cuts will have a devastating impact,” said Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU). “This hospital plays a vital role in Toronto, and it is downsizing significantly at a time when demand for its services is surging. The Ford government’s continued underfunding is pushing Ontario’s hospitals past the breaking point, and the impact can be measured in the suffering of patients and those who love them.”
A health care system in crisis.
Public opinion polls consistently rank health care as the No. 1 issue for Ontarians, yet the government continues to cut and privatize essential services.
“The hospital funding policy of the Ford government is letting down communities across the province,” said Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of OCHU. “250,000 people are on surgical wait lists.1,850 are on stretchers at hospitals every single day. ERs are closing routinely.”
Since taking office, the Ford government’s increases to hospital funding have not kept pace with inflation, population growth, ageing, or the rising cost of drugs and medical technologies.
The fear amongst many is that the Premier is building a private health care system rather than fund the existing public system.
“This government can imagine funding a $100 billion tunnel that no one has asked for, but it refuses to fund the actual costs of a vital service like our hospitals,” says Hurley. “We need to talk about a plan to staff up our hospitals, to get patients on wait lists into surgeries, to get patients off hallway stretchers into beds and to meet the demands of an aging and growing population. We want to have that conversation urgently.”
Health care advocates warn that these layoffs are part of a broader push to privatize more services, creating a two-tier system where only those who can afford to pay get timely care.
People’s certainty always troubles me, unable to see a point of view due to lack of knowledge. To take and preach a position while feigning moral superiority, while their followers over time will have no other chance to correct course, and fall into an ever-increasing dependency; my position in all this is that the preachers of superior certainty will have to feel suffering and despair themselves before anything changes.
My point of providing a positive experience is that those do exist, and the people are excellent. It’s like google reviews, only those with a negative experience post, so in fact its not statistically significant.
What’s more important to report on is negative, positive and neutral experiences relative to the total number of heath care interactions over a period of time.
Clearly the intent of this article is to troll a certain response, and judging by the comments, mission accomplished. Well done, many have taken the bait!
Do we have great health care, not great, but I’d say ok. The people I’ve encountered are excellent.
To draw a conclusion based on the numbers in the article is frankly comical.
Here’s why and what should have been reported on. What percentage of patients in wards are waiting on stretchers? What percentage of those waiting on stretchers or gurney’s are in the ER? What percentage arrived at the ER as a result of substance abuse? What percentage on waitlists are there by choice ie. scheduling surgery to fit with other priorities? What percentage on waitlists are in critical condition. What percentage are on a waitlist that are non-critical or elective?
Now, how does that compare to other countries with 100% social health care.
This is shameful Ontario can do better
Health care is so important for both young and old !
Just a wild guess here, and throwing this one out there, you think massive immigration (5 to 8 times prior to 2015), rise in fentanyl overdoes, government supplied opioids might have anything to do with this or at least be a major factor?
Actually, I had surgery at JB in Burlington in 2023 and Juravinski in Hamilton last year, surgeons were beyond excellent, wait time was minor or no issue, nurses and hospital staff were excellent and I could not image doing the job they do.
Ballot should read “Two-Tier Ford”. ‘Nuff said.
There’s always been two-tier in Ontario–do you really believe the wealthy are waiting on long waiting-lists? They merely travel to the United States or Europe to get the work done. Do you think the well-connected are waiting on those waiting lists? Not a chance.
No Philip, I don’t believe the wealthy and well-connected are waiting on long waiting-lists. Didn’t say I did. They always find a way to get what they need.
But for the average Ontarian who has a health issue that needs attention but can’t get it, Ford’s blatant turn toward laying off staff at hospitals when we already have hallway medicine, is a step towards more high cost private clinics only for the wealthy. It leaves the middle and lower classes without health care and makes the crisis worse.
I’m not worried about the high class healthcare, I’m worried about the bulk of the people of Ontario who are being neglected by Mr. Ford.
Here’s what health care in Ontario is really like. Back in the year 2000, I was diagnosed with CLL and ended up seeing a specialist at a leading Toronto cancer centre. Based on the research I had done, I told this specialist I wanted to determine the genetic markers for my specific disease since the research done internationally indicated the importance of these markers for treatment. When I got the results of this test I was shocked–this cancer centre had only done 1 of the 4 key markers (Ontario didn’t do the other 3). I contacted the University of Bournemouth in the UK where I had the tests done at a cost of $800. The specialist in Bournemouth indicated that the treatment protocol being proposed in Toronto was inappropriate given the markers. The specialist in Toronto was furious that I had done these tests in the UK; he was dismissed. I finally found one of Canada’s best–a terrific researcher and doctor, at another Toronto hospital. Bottom line–I still haven’t needed treatment but if I had followed the first treatment protocol proposed, there is a good chance I would no longer be alive. Also, Ontario started funding the other markers in 2017!!!!
Well said, Gary. The number of people who believe that as long as they themselves aren’t negatively impacted by something, to hell with those others who are, is why we are seeing the US turn into 1934 Germany and a shocking number of people there and here and elsewhere shrugging their shoulders or outright accepting things – including by their silence – that I find shocking. What happened to humanity? Doug Ford babbled yesterday about how Canada and the US can be a super power – excuse me? The US – the Trump/Musk US – the US who just yesterday sided with Russia and North Korea and against Ukraine and their allies at the UN! And yet Ontario will likely vote for this corrupt fool anyway.
“When you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” – Desmond Tutu
I can’t believe how many are neutral or worse.