TORONTO — The Canadian Union of Public Employees says current spending proposals by the provincial government will put Northwestern Ontario hospitals under significant cost pressures.
CUPE held a news conference Wednesday to release a union research paper called Ontario Hospital Crisis: Overcapacity and Under Threat.
It said it used government data to extrapolate spending projections, and found that province-wide hospital funding will fall "almost $600 million behind" in the first year, and over $4.4 billion in eight years.
Assuming that staffing follows funding, CUPE said this would mean about 15 per cent less staff relative to demand.
Michael Hurley, president of CUPE's Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, said this will place patients at risk.
"There will be no surge capacity. The government has learned nothing from the COVID pandemic" Hurley said.
CUPE estimates that hospital funding in Northwestern Ontario would fall $16 million "behind cost pressures" in the first year, and $118 million by year eight.
According to the union, the impact on Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre would be the equivalent of operating today with 425 fewer staff.
For Lake of the Woods Hospital in Kenora the impact would be 80 fewer staff, and for Riverside Health Care in Fort Frances, it would be 45 fewer staff.
Hurley said Ontario will be in even more serious jeopardy the next time it encounters a health crisis.
"The next pandemic, or serious flu, will overwhelm us much sooner but even without that pressure the hospital system will simply not be able to meet the demand of an aging population," he said.
He accused the government of deliberately setting up a situation where hospitals will have no choice but to send more patients "into the arms of the for-profit facilities."
