{"id":9004,"date":"2020-01-22T13:05:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-22T18:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=9004"},"modified":"2021-07-21T16:20:14","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T20:20:14","slug":"release-new-cbc-hospital-overcrowding-data-should-compel-much-more-substantive-urgent-response-from-ford-government-health-coalition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/release-new-cbc-hospital-overcrowding-data-should-compel-much-more-substantive-urgent-response-from-ford-government-health-coalition\/","title":{"rendered":"RELEASE: <\/FONT>New CBC Hospital Overcrowding Data Should Compel Much More Substantive & Urgent Response from Ford Government: Health Coalition"},"content":{"rendered":"

(January 22, 2020)<\/p>\n

Toronto \u2013 Responding to the CBC\u2019s release of new Ontario hospital overcrowding data that shows the majority of the province\u2019s hospitals have been operating at gravely unsafe levels of overcrowding for more than a month out of the most recent six months measured, the Ontario Health Coalition reported that the data should spark outrage. One-third of Ontario\u2019s hospitals hit levels of overcrowding that are higher than those deemed a \u201chumanitarian crisis\u201d by the Red Cross in the U.K. The numbers are unparalleled in any jurisdiction we have seen in the developed world, says the Coalition, which has organized mass protests over the last year of thousands of patients, front-line hospital nurses, professionals, support workers, doctors and advocates, calling for a stop to the cuts and restoration of services. The Coalition released its pre-budget report this week. The report adds to the CBC data by using national health care database figures to calculate Ontario\u2019s ranking compared with other provinces and international jurisdiction in terms of hospital funding and hospital capacity. The data is available here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Coalition expressed anger that the provincial government and hospital leadership continue to use the same rhetoric to cover for cuts that hospital-cutting governments have used for the last 25 years. Coalition spokesperson Natalie Mehra said that too little is being done address the suffering of patients who cannot access care. This situation is a result of provincial government choices that have adopted the most radical hospital downsizing of any jurisdiction in Canada or among our peer nations as cornerstone health restructuring policy for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ford government and hospital leaders continue to make false claims that even more patients can be offloaded from hospitals to other (cheaper) levels of care. This is unconscionable given the suffering we are already seeing and given the data that irrefutably shows that Ontario\u2019s hospitals are being run at levels of overcrowding that are dangerous and inhumane,\u201d said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. \u201cFar from \u201cending hallway medicine\u201d the Ford government has adopted the same tired excuses and rhetoric to cover for cuts and downsizing as the previous government while the situation has measurably worsened. This is not a partisan issue. It is unsound public policy that has created a crisis in patient care that must be addressed urgently by reopening closed beds and wards, reopening Operating Rooms that are closed because there is not enough funding for them, and restore funding to improve care.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its pre-budget data run released this week the Coalition found that:<\/p>\n