NDP: Doug Ford’s cuts are putting our health care system on the brink of collapse

TORONTO – While Ontario’s public hospitals are on the verge of collapse as historic deficits, staff shortages, and overcrowded emergency rooms push the health care system past its breaking point, Marit Stiles and the Ontario NDP are demanding immediate action from the Ford government to stop the erosion of public health care:

"Hospitals and health care workers are sounding the alarm, but Doug Ford is sleeping through it. His cuts have left Ontario's hospitals with "no easy choices", meaning that we'll lose even more of the burnt-out health care workers who are holding this system together as it buckles.

"The Ford government is quick to throw money at his vanity projects: multi-billion-dollar spas and tunnels, while Ontarians stay stuck on waiting lists to see doctors and nurses. The NDP created universal health care, and we'll be the ones to protect it.”

NDP Shadow Minister for Health MPP France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) is also warning that without urgent intervention, emergency rooms and hospital services across the province face imminent failure:

“Emergency rooms are already overwhelmed, staff are burned out, and patients are waiting longer than ever while Doug Ford sits on his hands.” said Gélinas. “These growing hospital deficits are the blueprint for a full health care collapse. This crisis is not accidental. It is the result of deliberate decisions made by Doug Ford and his Conservative government to starve our public health care system, so they can say: it does not work, we need a solution, and the solution will be for-profit health care. If this trajectory continues, Ontarians will see services disappear, ERs close, and lives put at risk more than they already are under this conservative government.”