The leader of the Ontario NDP is calling out the Liberal government over cuts to heath care that have affected southwestern Ontario.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath was in London, Chatham-Kent and Windsor over the weekend to hear from health care workers and patients about the challenges they are facing due to cuts in hospital funding.
Horwath says she heard a number of concerns, specifically about the rumored closure of the ER at Sydenham District Hospital in Wallaceburg.
During question period on April 18 in the Ontario Legislature, the premier and the minister of health announced their commitment to keep Wallaceburg's emergency department open.
Horwath says she plans to hold the provincial government to that commitment and be a voice for the local community.
"You can't take away access to emergency rooms in small communities. It is absolutely wrong to do that," she says. "Those emergency rooms are necessary to provide services to the community; to stabilize patients if they need to be sent to sent to the larger centres."
Horwath referred to hospital cuts as the "silent crisis" of Premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government, adding that more than 1,440 nursing positions have been cut in the province since the start of 2015.
Windsor Regional Hospital was one of a number of facilities affected, with more than 160 full-time positions being cut across its two campuses.
Back in March, St. Joseph’s Health Care in London announced it would be eliminating 60 positions. A day later, the London Health Sciences Centre announced there would be a reduction in staff hours equivalent to 64.5 full time positions.
Horwath says she's been told a number of "horror stories" about nurses who have had to deal with the stress and pressure of doing their job when the health care system is being "cut to the bone."
"We hear the frustration and the worry from nurses around the cuts that occur and what that means in terms of their ability to actually meet the needs to patients in the hospitals... I've heard that around the province," she says. "For a government to jeopardize people's health and well being for the purposes of deficits and dollars, instead of making sure we have the health care we need, is extremely wrong-headed."
Horwath is calling for the Liberal government to stop cutting hospital care, put a moratorium on cuts to nurses, and ensure that Ontario families can count on their health care system.
