Northern Ont. MPP calls for better nurse-to-patient ratios

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A Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) from northern Ontario reintroduced a bill this week calling for improved nurse-to-patient ratios.

Nickel Belt MPP and NDP Health Critic France Gelinas spoke about the bill at Queen’s Park on Wednesday.

“We are bringing forward a time-tested and proven solution to the crisis in our hospital system and solutions to poor care for patients, solutions to medical complications and to patient violence,” Gelinas said.

“As well as the solutions to nurses burning out, leaving the profession or retiring early.”

Co-signed by Sudbury MPP and Labour, Training, and Skills Development Critic Jamie West, the proposed bill legislates the maximum number of patients a nurse can care for.

West and Gelinas were joined by Erin Ariss, Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) provincial president, Angela Corneil, Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) and president of WeRPN, along with Angela Hodgson, RPN and president of CUPE Local 1974.

“We have over 180,000 nurses in Ontario who want (this bill), who realize that we have a health human resources crisis,” Gelinas said in an interview with CTV News.

“A big part of it could be solved with that bill.”

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Gelinas added that similar legislation has been put in place elsewhere.

“We have a solution. It has been tested all over the world. The U.K. does it, Australia does it. The US does it. British Columbia is doing it, it works,” she said.

Ratios would be set depending on the level of care required by the patient, Gelinas said.

For example, one nurse would be assigned to one patient in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), whereas one nurse would be assigned to four patients in palliative care.

Ariss said she’s heard from nurses across the province who are caring for up to five patients at a time in the ICU.

“For years, Ontario has held the shameful record of having the worst registered nurse-to-population ratio in Canada,” she said.

“What it means is that nurses are spread far too thin. It means we are understaffed every single shift. This means we are sometimes working 16- and 24-hour shifts, because there is no one available to take over.”

Ariss added that in 2024, Ontario hospitals were closed for more hours than at any other time in the last three years.

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“While we see ongoing closures, long wait times and emergency department chaos, this government is failing to fund public health care,” she said.

“Staffing ratios make workloads more manageable, reduce burnout and ensure patients receive the high-quality care they deserve.”

Hodgson has been an RPN for 20 years.

She said things have changed drastically since she first entered the profession.

“It is such, so much more challenging. Instead of four or five patients per nurse, it’s far more common to be assigned six to eight patients during your shift,” Hodgson said.

“It becomes virtually impossible to provide the kind of care that we are trained to deliver.”

The heavy workload, she added, not only takes a toll on the patient, but on the worker as well.

“When you’re unable to provide the level of care your patient truly needs, when call bells go unanswered or medications are delayed and there’s no time to sit with someone, understand their condition or simply offer comfort, you start to question yourself,” Hodgson said.

“You doubt the quality of care that you’re delivering and carry the weight of feeling like it wasn’t enough. These moments stay with you as a nurse.”

CTV News reached out to the Ministry of Health for comment.

In a statement, a spokesperson referred to initiatives the government has put in place to grow the workforce.

“Ontario is proud to lead the country with the largest healthcare workforce and the highest compensation rates,” the statement read.

“Since 2018, our government has registered a 100,000 record number of new nurses and we have another 30,000 nurses currently studying at one of Ontario’s colleges or universities.”

In the past, the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) has been vocal in its opposition to setting staffing ratios.

“Hospitals make safe staffing decisions and continuously adapt these to changing patient care needs. The OHA does not support rigid registered nurse (RN) to patient ratios,” the OHA spokesperson Kirk LeMessurier told CTV News in an email statement.

“In today’s complex and demanding environment, these important decisions require daily flexibility and rely on interprofessional teams, including RNs as well as other health care professionals, working to their full scope of practice.”

He said there is no one-size-fits-all approach to health care staffing.

“A combination of factors is considered when determining safe staffing levels, including the type of unit, number of patients, acuity levels, knowledge and experience levels of clinical staff and the presence of technology and other supports,” LeMessurier said.

“These factors can change frequently and vary across hospitals, which means that flexibility is needed to meet the changing needs of patients. Rigid RN-to-patient ratios would remove the flexibility required to tailor staffing levels.”

Since 2019/2020, he said the overall hospital workforce has grown by more than 40,000 health care workers to a total size of more than 280,000.

“This includes 7,500 more RNs and 5,600 more registered practical nurses working in hospitals,” LeMessurier said.

“Hospital vacancy and turnover rates have also decreased significantly since the pandemic.”

Hospital job vacancies have dropped more than five per cent in less than three years, from 10.74 per cent in October 2022 to 4.97 per cent in March 2025, he added.

Meanwhile, turnover rates have also dropped from 14.66 per cent to 8.93 per cent during the same period.