You may have to dodge a gurney or two outside North Bay General Hospital if you visit tomorrow morning.
CUPE plans a line-up of hospital stretchers outside that will "symbolize the crisis in Ontario’s health care" according to a release.
It says1,860 people are on stretchers in Ontario hospital hallways, up from 826 in June 2018 when the Premier promised to end hallway medicine.
The union also claims 250,000 are people waiting for surgeries, 11,000 of whom died on the waitlist.
“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, for long-term care beds, a family doctor, or appropriate home care services."
"In the first half of 2024-25, North Bay General Hospital operated at 88.3% capacity, well above the 85 per cent recommended maximum bed occupancy level. According to analysis by OCHU-CUPE, North Bay General must add 16 beds to achieve safe occupancy levels.
"The shortfall is $10.2 million at North Bay General Hospital, and $800 million across Ontario."
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.
The union recommends the following solutions to address the healthcare crisis:
- Improve hospital capacity to match the needs of an aging 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 waitlists
- 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