Health care is now the most critical provincial election issue, hospital union leaders insist

Hospital union leaders want Ontario party leaders to make health care the main talking point during this provincial election campaign. Eric Taschner explains.

In three weeks, voters will put pen to paper to form the next provincial government.

Now that U.S. President Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs are on pause for the time being, what is the next biggest election issue?

Hospital union leaders want each party leader from the four main political parties to make health care the priority talking point this election campaign.

Leaders from the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) were waving flags while standing outside of the North Bay Regional Health Centre (NBRHC) Wednesday morning trying to drum up, support calling on the leaders of the four major parties to invest in Ontario’s health care system.

“How the parties plan to address the crisis that it’s facing on all of its fronts will be something that they’re going to start talking about,” said OCHU President Michael Hurley to reporters.

They lined up a row of stretchers on the sidewalk in front of the hospital sign to symbolize that hospitals are quite literally ‘stretched to the limit’ with a shortage of beds, funding and staff.

The union states that over 1,800 people are on stretchers in hospital hallways, up from 820 in June 2018 – adding 2.5 million citizens are without a family doctor, palliative home care patients are dying without painkillers and medical supplies, 250,000 people are waiting for surgeries, 11,000 of whom died on the waitlist and nearly 50,000 people are waiting for a spot in a long-term care home.

“We forecast that would require an investment of $2 billion a year for each of four years to clear the surgical wait lists and get the patients off the stretchers,” said Hurley.

“This hospital (NBRHC) doesn’t know from one month to the next how much money it’s going to get from the province.”

NDP Leader Marit Stiles, Green Party leader Mike Schreiner and Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie have repeatedly taken jabs Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford on a promise he made in June 2018 to end hallway medicine.

“Which has not been fulfilled. Wait times are huge,” said Nipissing University political science professor David Tabachnick.

“That sad spectacle in Walkerton where 1,000 people were lining up in the cold to get a family doctor really indicates the crisis. These longer-term concerns like not having a family doctor are more important to Ontarians.”

Union data provided to CTV News shows the NBRHC ‘s funding shortfall currently sits at $10.2 million, while Greater Sudbury’s Health Sciences North (HSN) is at $22 million. North Bay needs 16 more hospital beds to achieve safe occupancy levels, while Sudbury is short 54.

In the first half of 2024-25, HSN operated at 91.7 per cent capacity, well above the 85 per cent recommended maximum bed occupancy level. North Bay was operated at 88.3 per cent capacity.

“The province’s own numbers say we need 70,000 personal support workers, registered practical nurses, registered nurses,” said Hurley.

“If we’re really going to recruit and retain them, we need a plan for that.”

The two hospitals are trying to address these problems.

“Our senior leadership team works closely with provincial officials to ensure appropriate funding is in place to sustain the system and ensure patients receive the right care in the right place,” wrote NBRHC President Paul Heinrich in a statement.

“Health Sciences North continues to work closely with Ontario Health and the provincial government in addressing our capacity challenges,” wrote Jason Turnbull, HSN’s manager of communications and community engagement in his own statement.

Hurley told CTV News he wants to hear more specific plans on how each party would address the health care crisis.

“We heard from the three opposition leaders about their plans,” he said.

“They could have been a little bit more fleshed out.” he admitted.

Hurley said CUPE has a slew of recommendations for the next government that takes power – including: adding staffed hospital beds, addressing the staffing crisis by improving wages and working conditions and providing incentives such as free tuition to students in nursing and PSW programs, ending private sector delivery of acute, long-term care and community health services and improve staffing in LTC homes to meet the four-hours of daily care benchmark while expanding capacity to reduce waitlists.