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RALLY IN WINDSOR CALLS ON PROVINCE TO FIX ‘HEALTHCARE CRISIS’

Posted: December 11, 2022

(December 12, 2022)

By: Rusty Thomson, iHeartRadio

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Members of the Windsor-Essex Health Coalition rally outside of Windsor Regional Hospital to call on the Ontario government to fix what they call a crisis in the healthcare system. Dec. 12, 2022 (Photo by Rob Hindi)

A rally today outside of Windsor Regional Hospital as part of several protests across the province by members of the Ontario Health Coalition.

The protest is calling on the Ontario government to fix what it calls a ‘crisis in our public hospitals.’

The coalition said Ontario needs more than 50,000 long-term care staff and more than 40,000 hospital staff as well as more funding for its hospitals, citing increased wait times and backlogs in emergency rooms, long surgical delays and wait lists, along with other cancelled or delayed services.

Unifor Local 2458 represents long-term care and hospital workers in Windsor-Essex and president Tulio DiPonti says healthcare is in crisis and the government needs to do something about it, but argues privitization is not the answer.

DiPointi says they’re out to let the government know that what they’re doing is not working.

“It’s a shortage of staffing and lack of willingness from the provincial government, and the federal government too, to make sure they put the resources in these hospitals to be able to maintain the staffing, and to make sure that they people who come to get treatment are taken care of,” he says.

DiPonti says his members are frustrated, burned out, and they need help.

“We try to do the best that we can. We don’t control where the money goes, how the money is spent and how do we deal with the actual staffing of the hospital, that’s the administration. We know one thing and we know it through Ontario, it’s not working. Again, it’s not working,” he says.

DiPonti says the situation is not good for his members.

“It breaks my heart. We have a lot of them that are crying saying they go to work but they don’t know if there will be a full compliment of staff to be able to help and get the people that need that help. To them, that’s like a failure,” he adds.

Members of the Ontario Health Coalition are also staging demonstrations outside the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre in Toronto and Kitchener’s Grand River Hospital.

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