Jagmeet Singh calls on Trudeau to address staffing shortages, ER closures

OTTAWA -

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is calling on the Liberal government to address staffing shortages in Canada’s health-care system by streamlining the process to hire more internationally trained workers, and hiring more long-term care workers while increasing their salaries.

Singh issued the call at a press conference with Ontario Nurses’ Association President Cathryn Hoy on Thursday. His message to the federal government comes as several emergency rooms across the country have announced temporary closures and reduced services due to lack of staffing, while nurses leave the industry in droves.

“That’s what we’re putting to the prime minister: invest in the solutions, show up and be a leader,” Singh said. “It’s not enough to say this is a provincial matter and then wash your hands of it, and the federal government has a role to play.”

Singh said he wants to see the Liberal government work with the provinces and territories to accelerate the process for internationally trained health-care workers to get their credentials recognized.

Management of health-care systems and delivery of care is largely provincial and territorial jurisdiction. Hoy and the heads of various nursing unions say while it’s important to recruit new workers, the problem is retaining them, especially because of poor working conditions, in some cases caused by provincial policies.

Hoy said Premier Doug Ford’s policies in Ontario, for example, have driven nurses to other careers and early retirement, and the province has turned to private health-care providers to address the backlogs.

“All levels of government have a responsibility to ensure that Canadians have access to high quality public health care,” Hoy said.

“Your paycheque should never determine whether you have the right to care, or to be quite blunt, whether you have the right to live or die,” she also said.

She said she wants to see the federal government put in place a national health-care workforce body “to help coordinate a fulsome plan,” to prevent provinces from poaching staff from each other, and address other gaps and in the system.

health-care workers across the country have been sounding the alarm that the system was in crisis for months.

Meanwhile a new study by The Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario (WeRPN) states the staffing shortages are causing patient care to be “critically compromised.”

“I believe these findings will shock the public — close to 7 in 10 nurses are seeing patients’ health being put at risk because adequate time, resources and staffing levels are simply not available,” said Dianne Martin, chief executive officer of WeRPN, in a press release about the study. “Alarmingly, this is now being normalized.”

According to the study, nearly 80 per cent of nurses report having reached a “breaking point” in relation to their job, while the number of nurses surveyed who said they have “never been prouder to be a nurse,” went from 67 per cent in 2020, to 36 per cent in May 2022, and nearly half of surveyed nurses say they’re considering leaving the profession.

Nurses in Ontario especially have been speaking out against the resounding negative impacts of the province’s Bill 124, which caps their annual salary increases at 1 per cent.

“They have given it all, and what they have received is Bill 124 in Ontario,” Doris Grinspun, head of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, said on CFRA Thursday. “That’s why they’re leaving Ontario.”

She added many nurses sacrificed their vacations, their time off, and time with their family, in order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Nurses are exhausted. They are exhausted,” Grinspun said.

In January, Ontario Premier Doug Ford received harsh criticism from health-care workers for announcing he would add hospital beds to meet the needs of patients, without saying how he would staff them.

He’s asking for more federal funding to help hire workers, as is B.C. Premier John Horgan, who said Wednesday the only solution to the national problem of staffing shortages is more money from the federal government.