GUELPH – Mike Schreiner, released the following statement in response to concerns by Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer that our healthcare system will not be able to cope with the rise in hospitalizations from flu and COVID as gatherings move indoors.
“With winter approaching and hospitalizations increasing, health authorities and doctors are sounding the alarm that Ontario’s beleaguered healthcare system won’t withstand the incoming wave of flu and COVID infections.
Even now, hospital emergency rooms across the province are closing due to staff shortages. If the ER is open, wait times are longer than ever.
Available ICU beds are scarce or non-existent and paediatric hospitals are feeling the crunch.
And while our healthcare system becomes completely overwhelmed before our eyes, as we’ve seen in the past, Ford is yet again failing to produce any semblance of a plan to address the crisis.
I call on the Premier to make a real plan to address the current crisis in our healthcare system, one that includes immediate and targeted financial investments, halting the exodus of nurses and other frontline healthcare workers by repealing Bill 124, and clear communication to the public.
Ontarians need actual leadership from the government on the healthcare file, and they need it yesterday. The Premier’s failure to plan is a plan to fail.”