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ONA decries ‘tsunami’ of cuts at major Ontario hospitals, including LHSC
Posted: July 10, 2026
(July 9, 2026) By: Bryan Bicknell, CTV News
The Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) is sounding the alarm over what it describes as a “tsunami” of new cuts at hospitals across the province, “leaving patients in a number of communities with less care.”
The association says it has received notice of hundreds of cuts of registered nurses, nurse practitioners, and other health care professionals across the province. The cuts are at long term care homes, and some of the largest urban hospitals in Ontario, including London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC), where the ONA says 288 nursing cuts were announced this past March.
“And by eliminating registered nurses from these workplaces, from these hospitals, they are not going to see an improvement in patient care. They’re not going to see an improvement in patient safety. They’re going to see the opposite,” said ONA president and RN Erin Ariss.
According to Ariss, nurses at LHSC filed 269 workload complaint forms in the first six months of this year, compared to 140 in all of 2025.
“So what that means, is quite possibly, medications can be delayed. Assessments could be delayed. Patients will not be up and mobile as they once were because the nurses are not there,” Ariss explained.
Peter Bergmanis, who represents the London chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition, said the provincial government continues to dismantle public health care.
“They’re Americanizing our entire public health care system. Transferring a lot of public dollars. $300 million in the latest round. And meanwhile, strangulating our hospitals for resources. That’s what’s happening. They’re losing staff,” Bergmanis stated.
In a statement to CTV News, Lily Barnes, spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones, called the ONA claims “misguided,” saying that the government has added more than 100,000 new nurses since 2018.
The statement also said at LHSC, “We have increased our investment by over 50 per cent since 2018. This funding is in addition to the hospital expansion projects that are underway in London.”
The statement also pointed out that hospitals are independent corporations, responsible for their own day to day operations, including human resource matters.
Bergmanis doesn’t buy it.
“This little blame-game that the Ford administration is playing is ridiculous. They’re the ones that hold the purse strings. The hospitals can only implement what monies they actually have been given,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement to CTV News, LHSC said there are no new layoffs at the hospital. Rather, as previously announced, a reduction of 184 full-time equivalent staff through attrition, taking place over the next three years.
