‘Well being care has misplaced some prominence on this provincial election,’ says president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions
Hospital union members made a press release outdoors Barrie’s hospital Tuesday in an effort to carry to mild what they are saying is a disaster within the province’s health-care system.
A small group of protesters stood in entrance of a lineup of hospital stretchers on the facet of the road at Royal Victoria Regional Well being Centre (RVH) as an emblem of their issues.
“Health care has lost some prominence in this provincial election,” Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU-CUPE), advised BarrieToday whereas standing within the chilly underneath an RVH signal.
“We want to try to remind people about the fact that the stretchers represent the 2,000 people that are on stretchers in hospitals like this one, on any given day, or the quarter-of-a-million people who are on wait list for surgeries, many of whom, you know, are waiting beyond their medically recommended time-limits for surgery,” he added.
Hurley additionally expressed concern for what he mentioned is 50,000 folks ready for long-term care beds or 2.5 million individuals who do not have a household physician.
“These issues are huge for anybody who’s affected — anybody with cancer, anybody with a family member who’s struggling in the health-care system, and we don’t want those issues to get lost in this election, because we need some solutions,” he mentioned.
Hurley says Ontario spends the least of any province within the nation on well being care and hospitals.
“We need to invest, because we have a population that’s aging and it’s grown in size and the funding has not kept pace,” he added.
The union says there are 1,860 folks on stretchers in hospital hallways, up from 826 in June 2018 “when the premier promised to end hallway medicine.”
Different health-care points they are saying are an issue are palliative home-care sufferers dying with out painkillers and medical provides, in addition to “constant” emergency room closures in small cities in Ontario.
“We’re just trying to talk up the issue and hope that health care starts to rise,” Hurley mentioned.
