Hospital workers call for more funding, beds and staff

COLLEEN GREEN The Standard

KAWARTHA LAKES: On Thursday, October 8th, healthcare workers gathered outside Ross Memorial Hospital (RMH), in Lindsay, to highlight healthcare funding issues. Healthcare workers and union representatives are calling on the Ontario government to increase public hospital funding, warning: staffing shortages and limited bed capacity are contributing to burnout and delays in patient care.

According to the Ontario Hospital Association, the basic cost of running the provincial hospital sector rises roughly six percent annually, due to population growth, an aging population, and inflation. Because the Ontario provincial government's funding increases typically fall short of this six percent threshold, hospitals face an ongoing structural deficit, to maintain baseline services.

President of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), Michael Hurley, attended the RMH rally on Thursday and said, hospitals need funding increases, to reflect rising care costs and investments in additional staff and beds. Mr. Hurley cited rising pharmaceutical costs, expensive medical technologies, and physician salaries as drivers of expenses. He said, the hospital will only receive 3.3 percent funding in the current fiscal year, leaving it facing cuts.

“We are asking the province to fund hospitals at their actual operating costs,” Mr. Hurley said. “We are also asking them to invest to add staff and beds, so you don't have people waiting for surgeries, and you don't have people waiting on hallway stretchers.”

Mr. Hurley also criticized the provincial government's investment in private surgical centres, saying, more resources should be directed toward public hospitals.

He said, the government has invested $4.1 billion in the private surgical sector, over the past eight years, including facilities performing cataract surgeries. Despite the investment, he said, wait lists have grown, and cataract procedures cost approximately twice as much in private centres as in public hospitals.

“Prior to this, we actually led the country in [short] wait times for cataracts, and now we're in the middle of a pack. People are waiting longer,” he said.

Heather Nugent, president of CUPE Local 1909, which represents healthcare workers at Ross Memorial Hospital, said, “We're very short-staffed, as it is. We find we're putting in multiple workloads all the time.”

“As our community is growing, we used to be a little country town. Now we are almost like a city, and although we have more population, our beds stay the same,” she said.

Although staffing has increased, employees continue to face burnout and struggle to keep up with workloads, Ms. Nugent said. The pressure extends beyond nurses to pharmacy and housekeeping staff. Pharmacy employees face delays which can slow how quickly patients receive medications, while housekeeping staff must clean additional stretchers without corresponding staffing increases.

Patients occupying stretchers reflect a broader shortage of hospital beds, a problem affecting communities across Ontario. Other communities are organizing rallies to call for improvements.

While competitive wages remain important for attracting and retaining healthcare workers, Ms. Nugent said, staffing levels are the more pressing concern. “We've always looked for the pay to be standard across the board because that would help with staffing, as well,” she continued. “But I don't think our pay is the problem. It's having the staff to get through our day and be able to provide the care needed.”