A new report warns hospital staffing and capacity challenges will only get worse over the next four years.
A failure of planning by the Ford government is one of the main reasons behind the crisis, according to the report from the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, and 47 new hospital beds and 250 new staff will be required locally to help address the situation.
In order to meet those numbers, current staff need to be kept from leaving and more need to be recruited by offering more incentives.
OCHU/Canadian Union of Public Employees President Michael Hurley says they sent a letter to Premier Doug Ford last year hoping to meet with him but they haven’t heard back.
“What’s obviously a terrible crisis for the Province of Ontario, you’d think that a meeting would happen but it hasn’t happened yet and I’m hoping it will happen.”
The report was put together using data from Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information.