Already funded and staffed at levels well below other provinces, Ontario’s hospitals’ hallway medicine and bed crisis will deepen under Premier Doug Ford’s public service “efficiency” program and promised tax cuts, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) warned today in Toronto.
OCHU, the hospital division of CUPE in Ontario, has crunched the numbers on three key Ford proposals and their impact on hospitals across the province.
According to OCHU’s report, Hallway Medicine: It Can Be Fixed, which looked at the implications of Ford’s promised $7 billion tax plan, balanced budget commitment and a 4 per cent public service “efficiency” program, Ontario’s hospitals would see a loss of 2,467 to 3,712 more beds and between 8,560 to 16,418 jobs.