Ontario health-care workers 'at their wits end' over hospital staffing crisis: union

Health-care workers across Ontario "are at their wits end" due to the ongoing hospital staffing "crisis" taking a toll on the province's emergency rooms, the president of Ontario Council of Hospital Unions of CUPE said Tuesday.

Michael Hurley was among hundreds of workers and union leaders who held a demonstration outside the Sheraton Centre where several of the unions that represent health-care workers were engaged in collective bargaining with the province, to demand higher wages and better working conditions.

He said there are approximately 13,150 people on stretchers in hospital hallways, 107,000 people waiting for surgeries, and tens of thousands waiting for diagnostic procedures provincewide — but not enough workers to meet the demand.

"There is an exodus of staff in the health-care sector and in the hospital sector particularly … [and] the quality of patient care is suffering tremendously," Hurley told CBC Toronto.

"We lose over 10 per cent of nurses and other staff every year and we're not replacing them. So, retaining staff is key."

Hurley said the unions "also need a deal with the workload issues."

"We have the fewest staff working with the most patients and the fewest number of beds of any province, and as a result, the workloads are undoable."

He said the large turnout at the demonstration clearly shows that people are suffering and need the government to act urgently.

"Why would people take a bus from Oshawa or Sudbury for five or six hours to come here today to try to draw attention to the understaffing and the crisis in the hospitals? They would do that because they're at their wits end and they need the government to step up," he said. 

"I mean, last year the government funding for public hospitals went up by point five per cent when their costs went up like 5.6 per cent. So they cut the budgets in the hospitals by over five per cent at a time when we're shutting emergency wards and people couldn't get services. 

Speaking at Toronto Western Hospital today, where he announced a $794 million investment for a new 15-storey tower, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said his government has made record investments in hospital infrastructure and staffing across the province.

"We're investing almost $50 billion — folks, this has never happened in the entire country, not to mention the province — it's $50 billion for 15 new hospitals or expansions of hospitals," the premier said. "Here in Toronto, that includes $12 million for the Hillcrest Reactivation Centre project and $42 million for phase two of the stem cell transplant expansion project at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.

According to Ford, his government is also expanding the front-line health-care workforce.

"Since 2018, we've added more than 80,000 nurses that have registered here in Ontario," he said.