Patients at Even More Risk Under PC’s 8-year Funding Plan Like Operating Ottawa and Eastern Ontario Hospitals Today With 5,000 Fewer Staff and $630 Million Less Dollars: CUPE Overcapacity Report

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Although COVID-19 has shown how little capacity our hospitals have after decades of cuts, the crisis for Ottawa and eastern Ontario hospital patients will get much worse, says a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) research paper, Ontario Hospital Crisis: Overcapacity and Under Threat released today.

The Ontario 2021 budget plans to cut COVID health care funds by $3.25 billion. But even that will be dwarfed by $18 billion in real health care cuts that will be required if the government’s funding plans are implemented over an 8-year period.

According to the CUPE report that uses government data to extrapolate the projections, province-wide hospital funding will fall almost $600 million behind in the first year and over $4.4 billion in year eight. Assuming staffing follows funding, that would mean 15.3 per cent less staff relative to demand. This would be like operating Ontario’s hospitals today with almost 34,000 fewer staff.

“As these ongoing cuts take hold, year after year for the next decade, Toronto’s hospitals will stagger as an aging and growing population pits far too many very sick patients against its weakening capacity, says Michael Hurley president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE). “Patients will be at risk. There will be no surge capacity. This government has learned nothing from the COVID pandemic.”

Ottawa and eastern Ontario hospital funding would fall $60 million behind cost pressures in the first year and $457 million dollars behind cost pressures by year eight.

For Ottawa hospitals, that would be like operating them today with 3,300 fewer staff. For Cornwall Community Hospital, that would be like operating with 150 fewer staff. For Pembroke Regional Hospital, that would be like operating with 115 fewer staff today.

In southeast Ontario, hospital funding would fall $24 million behind next year and $183 million in eight years. For Kingston hospitals, that would be like operating today with 950 fewer staff. For Quinte hospitals, 320 fewer staff. In Brockville, 130 fewer staff.

Ontario has cut nearly 20,000 hospital beds in the last three decades. The report reveals funding has fallen far behind other provinces. To meet the average in the rest of Canada, Ontario would need another 8,793 beds. Ontario is even further behind bed levels in other countries. This has deepened the hospital COVID crisis in Ontario and explains the very high bed occupancy and hallway health care often reported by Ontario media. The Ford government funding plans will make this worse.

$18 billion in cuts “will mean a dramatic loss of hospital capacity. The next pandemic, or serious flu, will overwhelm us much sooner but even without that pressure the hospital system will simply not be able to meet the demand of an aging population. This, I believe, is intentional - hospitals will have no choice but to send more and more patients out earlier into the arms of the for-profit facilities which have the ear of this government and which have had such a high death rate during the pandemic. The public and hospital staff won’t accept that,” says Hurley.

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