GUELPH — MPP Mike Schreiner, released the following statement in response to a new report from CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions on the staffing and capacity crisis in Ontario’s hospitals.
“All across Ontario, hospitals are frantically sounding the alarm – but the Premier just doesn’t care.
The numbers in this report are staggering. More than 33,000 full-time staff missing from Ontario’s hospitals. An RPN vacancy rate that’s more than double what it was when the Premier took office.
Our healthcare workers are skipping breaks and lunches, working past the end of their shifts, taking on every extra shift they can manage just to patch the gaping holes created by this government’s negligence.
Each and every dollar this government withholds is a personal tragedy for an Ontario family.
It’s an extra year spent on a never-ending waitlist. It’s being forced to drive two or three towns over for emergency care because your ER is closed.
Proof of the Premier’s failed track record is stamped all across our healthcare system.
I stand with healthcare workers calling on the government to address the staffing and capacity crisis in Ontario’s hospitals by drastically increasing healthcare spending and investing in the workers who care for us.”