THUNDER BAY – The provincial official opposition leader believes the brother of late Toronto mayor Rob Ford should know better than to prevent the opening of overdose prevention sites.
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath, during a Friday visit to the city where she toured the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, was critical of Premier Doug Ford’s decision to pause the opening of three overdose prevention sites last month.
Thunder Bay would have had one of those sites, which was already equipped with supplies and ready to open at the NorWest Community Health Centres building on Simpson Street within a week of the notice of postponement.
“This premier in particular should know better. He had a brother who we watched that was gripped by addiction,” Horwath said.
“He should know that folks need supports and they need help, not to be thrown to the curb and judged because of something that is a medical problem, which is an addiction. It’s going to be more pressure on the health care system, more pressure on the (emergency room) here, more pressure on hospitals overall, and less compassionate help for people who need it.”
The Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre had 6,300 mental health and substance use emergency room visits in 2017, an 11 per cent increase from the previous year. That growing demand has prompted hospital officials to develop plans for a mental health emergency service.
Horwath said overdose prevention sites are meant to keep hospitals from having to pick up the burden, while providing opportunities to direct people to services.
“If you can prevent an overdose from happening, if you can save someone’s life at a supervised injection site, then those folks are not going to end up in the emergency room,” Horwath said.
“Those folks are going to have a fighting chance to perhaps be connected with a program that might help them to deal with their addiction issue. By putting a pause on these facilities, the premier is basically writing off those folks.”
As well, the Ford government in July cancelled a promise by the previous Liberal government of $2.1 billion over four years for new mental health funding. The Progressive Conservatives instead replaced it with a commitment of $1.9 billion over 10 years, amounting to a reduction of $330 million per year.
The government on Friday announced Ontario is projected to run a $15 billion deficit this year, in addition to a $3.7 billion shortfall last year that the Liberals presented as a balanced budget. Horwath warned with those figures, combined with Ford’s campaign promise to axe $6 billion, that health care facilities could be facing cuts.
Horwath said the Thunder Bay regional hospital, which is constantly in a state of surge capacity, is in dire straits but it is far from the only facility across the province having the same challenges.
“People are lined up in hallways with no dignity, no privacy, with no ability to even use a proper washroom. It’s a very sad state of affairs and this is what the Liberals left us after 15 years,” Horwath said.
“What people expected was a government to come in and fix the problems, not make them worse. Unfortunately, this government is on a track to make them worse and people are going to suffer.”
