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Interim NDP Official Opposition Leader Peter Tabuns and Health critic France Gélinas say Doug Ford should be in the legislature acting to fix the health care crisis, it won’t be packed until February while the weather of breathing is angry.
According to Ontario’s air ambulance and medical transport service, Ornge, saw a sharp increase in the number of transports of children under 18 — transporting more than 544 children under 18 between October 1 and December 2 only.
“Doug Ford should not have shut down the legislature when critically ill children are being flown across the province to find an empty ICU bed,” Tabuns said. “It’s terrifying to have a sick child and not have a nearby hospital capable of helping, and it’s unthinkable to let this crisis go unaddressed by the government for weeks and months in the winter while the virus spreads. “
Adult hospitals are also in crisis. On December 9, Marathon’s Wilson Memorial General Hospital in the Thunder Bay District had to close its ER due to staffing shortages.
“Northern communities have broken access to health care from the beginning,” Gélinas said. “It’s scary when a hospital closes its ER and the closest one is 70 kilometers away.
“We can fix the health care crisis in Ontario by giving health care workers competitive benefits and wages and using incentives to bring nurses back to the frontlines. Instead, Doug Ford made matters worse with plans to appeal his wage-limiting legislation, Bill 124, which pushed nurses out of the sector.”
The NDP is calling on the Ford government to follow the lead of other provinces and use incentives to hire more nurses and bring back those who leave due to poor pay and burnout.
“Ontarians cannot continue to wait for solutions that we know will help fix the health care crisis,” said Tabuns. “Families with young children, northerners, all Ontarians deserve to be able to count on robust public health care when and where they need it.”
Other solutions being pushed by the NDP are the implementation of stronger safety standards to improve working conditions for hospital staff; launching a mass vaccination campaign against COVID and influenza; immediately giving people 10 sick days; and appropriation and implementation of the Make Kids Count plan, which will mean more funding and staff for pediatric hospitals.
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