Stretched to the Limit: Hospital Union to Line-Up Gurneys Outside Queensway Carleton, Drawing Attention to the Health Care Crisis

OCHU-CUPE to hold media conference outside the Queensway Carleton on Monday morning at 10am

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--On the eve of the provincial election, a line-up of hospital stretchers outside Queensway Carleton will symbolize the crisis in Ontario’s health care:

• 1,860 people on stretchers in hospital hallways, up from 826 in June 2018 when the Premier promised to end hallway medicine.
• 2.5 million citizens without a family doctor
• Palliative homecare patients dying without painkillers and medical supplies
• 250,000 people waiting for surgeries, 11,000 of whom died on the waitlist
• Nearly 50,000 people waiting for long-term care
• Constant ER closures in small towns

“The crisis in healthcare affects almost every family,” says Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE). “The entire health care sector is staggering. There is no end to the staffing shortages; ER closures, waits for surgeries or for long-term care beds or for a family doctor or for appropriate home care services. We hope to help ensure that this election focuses on solutions to this crisis.”

In Ottawa, multiple hospitals are currently at unsafe levels of bed occupancy, which should not exceed 85 per cent. The occupancy rate for the Ottawa Hospital is 99 per cent, Hospital Montfort 91 per cent and the Queensway Carleton 87 per cent. Cumulatively, these three hospitals require about 250 additional hospital beds to achieve safe occupancy levels.

Naturally, due to high bed occupancy, wait-times at these hospitals are unsatisfactory, notes OCHU. The latest data from November 2024 shows that most ER patients are not admitted within the target time of eight hours, with an average wait of 22 hours at the Ottawa General.

$800 million shortfall across Ontario hospitals in first half of 2024-25

The union is raising concerns about access to care due to growing deficits across the hospital sector. Based on latest data, hospitals in Ontario faced a cumulative shortfall of $800 million in the first half of 2024-25. During the same period, hospitals across the Ottawa area recorded revenue shortfalls including Queensway Carleton ($2.1 million), the Ottawa Hospital ($49 million), Bruyere ($10.5 million), and Hospital Montfort ($3 million).

The union warns that cutbacks already happening at numerous hospitals including Hamilton, Guelph, and Burlington as they buckle under the weight of growing patient volumes and insufficient funding.

Pointing out that per-person hospital funding in Ontario is the lowest in Canada and that we have the fewest beds and hospital staff to population, Hurley says it is not surprising to witness a record increase in hospital overcrowding.

About 2,000 patients every day receive care on stretchers in unconventional spaces such as hallways and storage closets, an increase of 125 per cent since June 2018 when Ford got elected on the promise to end hallway health care.

Hurley says hospital overcrowding compromises patient and staff safety, causing delays in admitting patients, higher risk of nosocomial infections, and heavier workloads. Moreover, it robs patients of dignity as they are treated out in hallways without privacy.

“There are 250,000 people on wait lists for surgeries and 11,000 of them died waiting last year,” Hurley says. “2,000 are on stretchers today, begging for a bed. Palliative patients die at home without painkillers. As a province we must do so much better for our citizens.”

“The next government must implement real solutions”

The union recommends the following solutions to address the health care crisis:

• Improve hospital capacity to match the needs of an ageing and growing population, by adding staffed hospital beds.
• Address the staffing crisis by improving compensation and working conditions, and providing incentives such as free tuition to students in nursing and PSW programs
• End private sector delivery of acute, long-term care and community health services
• Ban agency nurses to reduce staffing costs, and invest that money in improving compensation and working conditions for in-house workers
• Improving staffing in LTC to meet the 4-hours of daily care benchmark and expand capacity to reduce waitlist
• End contracting out of services across health care, and run LTC and home care on a public, not-for-profit basis
• Expand the use of nurse practitioners to lead primary care clinics

Who: Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU- CUPE)
Doug Allan, senior health care researcher at CUPE

What: A line-up of hospital stretchers to warn about the health care crisis

Where: Queensway Carleton Hospital, 3045 Baseline Rd, Nepean

When: 10am on Monday, February 3

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