(January 31, 2025) By: Rob Gowan, Owen Sound Sun Times<\/p>\n
Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Friday in Chesley he is committed to investing in health care in rural Ontario.<\/p>\n
Schreiner and Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Green Party candidate Joel Loughead spoke to about 15 people outside the Chesley hospital, which has been representative of health-care challenges in rural Ontario in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chesley hospital here has had more emergency department closures than pretty much any hospital in the entire province of Ontario, and we have heard from folks who live here how important it is to access health care here,\u201d Schreiner said. \u201cI am just reiterating the Ontario Green Party\u2019s commitment to ensure that everyone in Ontario has access to a family doctor, that we will invest in rural health care to ensure hospitals like this one remain open.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Chesley hospital has been without overnight and weekend emergency department service on a continual basis since late 2022, with sporadic ER shutdowns and service interruptions going back years before then. South Bruce Grey Health Centre, which operates the hospital, blames staffing shortages.<\/p>\n
Other SBGHC hospitals have been affected. The Durham hospital ER closed overnight and Walkerton also seeing disruptions in the past. In mid-2024, SBGHC moved its inpatient beds out of the Durham hospital and to its sites in Walkerton and Kincardine to stabilize operations due to staffing shortages.<\/p>\n
Schreiner said his party would invest in doctors, nurses and other health-care workers to make sure staff is available.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a commitment that everyone will have access to a family doctor, nurse practitioner, primary health-care provider within three years. We are going to make the investments to do that,\u201d Schreiner said. \u201cSecondly we are going to increase funding for our hospitals, so that they remain open, and especially invest in staffing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schreiner said the Green Party has also committed to investing in long-term care, home and community care and mental health care to take pressure off hospitals.<\/p>\n
He said the PC government has failed in health-care staff retention.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many doctors, nurses, health-care workers have retired early or left the profession because they feel disrespected, they are underpaid and overworked,\u201d said Schreiner. \u201cThe unconstitutional Bill 124 has done so much damage to our health-care system by making it illegal for hospitals like this one to actually pay workers more even if they wanted to, because it would have been against the law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank goodness that has been declared unconstitutional, but the Ford government has done the damage and now we have to fix that damage by making the investments in health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schreiner mentioned the Ontario Place \u201cmega spa\u201d redevelopment, the idea of a highway tunnel under the 401 and decisions to remove bike lanes in Toronto as examples of Ford\u2019s priorities instead of keeping hospitals open.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealth care, education, housing \u2013 those are like the foundational responsibilities of a provincial government,\u201d Schreiner said. \u201cDoug Ford has abandoned them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The PCs did announce on Monday that they would commit $1.4 billion in new funding along with $400 million already committed to connect two million more people in Ontario with a primary care provider. The funding is to help the province\u2019s Primary Care Action Team led by former federal health minister Dr. Jane Philpott implement a plan to create or expand 305 primary care teams in Ontario.<\/p>\n
The government has said that since 2018, the province has added more than 15,000 new physicians to its health-care workforce, opened two new medical schools and increased the number of medical school seats.<\/p>\n
The government has also said that since its first majority government in 2018, a record-breaking number of new health care professionals have joined the workforce, including almost 100,000 new nurses, with another 30,000 studying at colleges and universities in the province. It says it has added 6,500 new spaces in nursing programs over the last three years and is investing hundreds of millions of dollars more to meet health-care staffing needs.<\/p>\n
Schreiner said the Ford government has had seven years to make the necessary investments and they have failed to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not fair for rural communities, it is not fair for the people who live here that they don\u2019t have access to basic health care,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Ontario Greens are going to fight for fairness, for communities like this to keep hospitals open and make sure they have access to good quality health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schreiner was also in Chesley, and later in the day in Hanover, to support the Green Party\u2019s candidate in the riding. Loughead is making his first foray into provincial politics after being elected to Grey Highlands council in 2022.<\/p>\n
Schreiner said the party has had a strong history in the riding in the past and he thinks Loughead is re-energizing that support.<\/p>\n
\u201cJoel Loughead is a fantastic candidate who will be your advocate at Queen\u2019s Park, not Mike Schreiner\u2019s advocate in the riding,\u201d he said. \u201cHe can stand up, mobilize with the community and keep hospitals like this open.\u201d Article content<\/p>\n
Loughead said he was glad to have Schreiner in the riding supporting him just a few days into the election campaign. Ford called the snap election Tuesday. Ontarians will head to the polls on Feb. 27.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes to show how much Mike cares about rural and small-town Ontario and Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound,\u201d Loughead said. \u201cHe has been hugely supportive of my campaign and he has been hugely supportive of this riding as long as I have been in politics and longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loughead said health care is a most important issue in the riding and one that affects everyone .<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is going to move to and invest in small-town Ontario unless we have hospitals, family doctors and nurse practitioners?\u201d said Loughead. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make any sense at all to move these to big city centres and invest in big city centres.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loughead said it is still early in the campaign, but so far it has been quiet with the election not really on people\u2019s minds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are we having an election right now?\u201d Loughead said \u201cThis is supposed to be 16 months from now, this is $200 million of taxpayers\u2019 money being spent on this needless campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brenda Scott was at Schreiner\u2019s stop in Chesley along with other members of the Chesley Hospital Community Action Committee, a group of citizens who have been working to ensure the hospital remains open and serving the community.<\/p>\n
Scott, who is also co-chair of the Grey Bruce Health Coalition, which is an affiliate of the non-partisan, non-profit Ontario Health Coalition which advocates for public health care, said they plan to make health care a top issue in the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe plan to be really active through the whole campaign,\u201d said Scott. \u201cWe are trying to set up some all-candidates meetings specifically about health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chesley resident Doug Walsh spoke to Schreiner about the importance of the Chesley hospital to the community. He credited the hospital with ensuring he received the care he needed quickly when he had a stroke in 2012.<\/p>\n
Walsh, who is a United Senior Citizens of Ontario board member, said his organization works directly with upper levels of government to improve the health and tax benefits of the province\u2019s seniors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we held our rallies down in Queen\u2019s Park, (Schreiner) was one of those who came and spoke to us,\u201d said Walsh. \u201cTo see a party leader take an interest into what is happening in rural Ontario and rural hospitals is very nice to see and we welcome it and we will welcome all party leaders that come to speak to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Walsh said he is hopeful that the health care concerns of rural Ontario are heard during the campaign.<\/p>\n
At a campaign stop in Mississauga on Thursday, Liberal Party leader Bonnie Crombie noted the recent scene that unfolded in Walkerton, where hundreds lined up in the snow hoping to land a family doctor.<\/p>\n
On Jan. 15, people lined up outside the Royal Canadian Legion in Walkerton hoping to get in on the 500 spots on the patient list of Dr. Mitchell Currie. There was a waiting list for 500 more.<\/p>\n
Crombie called the situation \u201cshameful,\u201d with seniors with walkers and wheelchairs and young mothers with babies and children in strollers.<\/p>\n
Walsh said the current government doesn\u2019t seem to see what is happening in rural communities, but seeing the attention rural issues are getting from other parties gives him hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt gives us a feeling that somebody out there recognizes the problem as well as we do,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cWhether they can do something about it, we can only hope.\u201d<\/p>\n