The Ontario Health Coalition has released a new report that outlines what it describes as a continual and worsening condition of the province’s hospital system.
The report says the Ontario health-care system has tipped into collapse, with additional departments besides the emergency one facing closures.
To date in 2023, there have been 868 temporary or permanent emergency department closures, 316 urgent care centre closures, two outpatient laboratory closures, and 11 obstetrics unit closures, among other departments.
The Ontario Health Coalition says closures are being caused by increasing staff shortages, including nurses, health professionals and physicians.
Staff shortages that were just starting to emerge three years ago were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the report says.
In Fort Erie and Port Colborne, 24-hour urgent care centres were forced to close overnight beginning over the summer despite strong pushback from local residents and advocates.
On July 14, the Hamilton General Hospital closed one third of its level three ICU beds due to a lack of critical care nurses.
A growing number of local hospitals are also at risk of permanently losing services as the duration of closures gets longer.
Multiple towns across regions are closing vital services at the same time, often with last minute notice for residents, making it difficult to access the care they need.
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, says the distances between hospitals that are experiencing service closures in the North are huge.
“Some hospitals have had services closed when they are an hour to four hours away from the next open service,” Mehra said.
“In the counties of Midwestern Ontario – Perth, Huron, Wellington, Dufferin, Bruce and Grey – we are seeing multiple hospital emergency departments closed at the same time with little to no notice. Patients in medical crises have to confirm on their own that the next hospital emergency isn’t also closed.”
Ontario’s official opposition NDP leader Marit Stiles is calling for action from the current Ford government.
“The Ford conservative government just doesn’t seem to care. They have seen our healthcare system as just another way to have their insider friends to make a buck and while they are funneling public dollars into private pockets,” said Stiles.
“We can not go back to a government that lays off nurses and slashes budgets for hospitals in this province.”
In a statement shared with CHCH News, the Premier defended his government saying there has been an increased investment in healthcare, and more specifically the hospital sector this year.
“Our government is proud to have one of the largest publicly funded healthcare systems in the world, a system we have invested over $80 billion this year, which includes a 4% increase to the hospital sector,” it read in part.
