NDP calls for health care investments as wait times balloon

SUDBURY — As reported by CBC, the latest statistics published by Ontario Health show that patients are waiting an average of 20 hours in the emergency department to be admitted — a whopping 42 per cent jump year over year. NDP Health critic France Gélinas says alarm bells have been ringing in hospitals, and patients can’t wait for investment. Gélinas released the following statement:

“In hospitals all over Ontario, people are waiting for hours, worried and in pain, to be admitted and get the treatment they need. Health care workers are run off their feet, exhausted, burning out and being disrespected.

This spiral started long before the pandemic, and the waits are only getting worse. Ontario urgently needs more health care workers, and better funding to tackle the surgical backlogs and put more staff on every shift.

The Conservative play book — cuts, underfunding and privatization — won’t fix it.

To get patients the care they need as quick as they need it, we must scrap Doug Ford’s low-wage policy, Bill 124. We need to train and hire tens of thousands of nurses, personal support workers and other health care workers. And we need to finally give nurses and all health care workers the respect they deserve.”