Ontario’s official Opposition leader is calling for a provincewide health-care hiring and retention plan to address the shortage of health workers in hospital and long-term care.
New Democratic Party (NDP) Leader Andrea Horwath was in London Wednesday to talk about the health-care worker shortage the province is facing and to unveil her party’s plan to address the issue if elected.
“Burnout is causing nurses, personal support workers and other health-care workers to quit, leading to more understaffing and more burnout. It’s a dangerous cycle, and it’s causing nurses and other health care workers to literally run from patient to patient while people wait in pain,” Horwath said.
“If we don’t do right by health-care workers we’re going to lose them — and the painful waits will get longer.”
In London alone, the NDP is reporting that the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) is funded for 700 critical care beds, requiring 420 nurses. Currently, there are only 388 nurses working, leaving a shortfall of 82 nurses.
To add to this, the Opposition says the rate of nurses quitting is double what it was before the pandemic.
In mid-September, the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions told Global News it estimates there are more than 16,000 vacancies in health-care jobs in the province.
During her visit, Horwath also criticized Premier Doug Ford for passing Bill 124, which was introduced in 2019 and caps certain public sector wages, such as nurses’, at a one per cent annual increase.
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“Health-care workers are heroes, and we need more heroes,” said Horwath.
“To solve the long waits in London, we need a provincewide aggressive recruitment and retention strategy.”
At Queen’s Park on Wednesday, Finance Minister, Peter Bethlenfalvy addressed Bill 124, saying it’s not a wage freeze or rollback.
“That’s a very reasonable bill that we put in place before COVID. We recognize the hard work that over a million public sector workers do, and it doesn’t impact collective bargaining, and It doesn’t impact their ability to strike.”
Horwath said the province should be taking the lead from provinces like Quebec, which over the last two years has spent $1 billion to retain nurses and hire 10,000 more personal support workers.
With a provincial election expected in less than a year, Horwath said if elected her party would overhaul the long-term care system, get rid of for-profit care homes, remove Bill 124, and focus on hiring and retaining new health-care works.
—with files from Global’s Jamie Mauracher
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