Media Advisory - PC hospital cuts are worse than projected; OHC, CUPE Queen's Park media conference Monday

TORONTO, July 12, 2019 /CNW/ - Recent comments by the Ontario ministry of health reveal that despite a promise (reiterated this week) by the Premier to end hallway medicine, hospital cuts will intensify.

The Ontario Health Coalition and the Ontario Council of Hospital (OCHU) will hold a media conference Monday, July 15, 2019 (10 a.m.) in the Queen's Park media studio to review how well Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative's (PCs) are really doing to enhance patient access to care.

For Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative government to keep its proposed budget plan for the next five years, "it is now apparent that the PCs will need to make larger cuts to hospitals (and health care generally) than previously estimated," says OCHU president Michael Hurley. "This is in stark contrast to the Premier's recent pronouncement that he will end hallway medicine within a year, which is, sadly, just magical thinking."

Based on the recent budget and economic review of Ontario's Financial Accountability Office (FAO), the government's spending plan needs billions of dollars more in extra, unidentified and unannounced cuts to public services in order to meet its savings targets.

A new report entitled, 'Protecting What Matters Most' that looks at health ministry spending restraint outlined in the 2019 budget while factoring inflation, population and aging growth cost pressures, then projects how many hospital staff and beds would be cut province-wide, will be reviewed Monday. New Toronto-specific hospital bed and staffing cut projections will also be released.

For hospital services, real funding cuts planned by the PC government for the next few years are, in fact, "well beyond early forecasts and especially alarming given we are overwhelmed today with a serious lack of hospital capacity," says Hurley. "The Progressive Conservatives are on track to deliver a patient access crisis, all the while using a massive health system restructuring to divert attention from the cuts coming to staff, beds and hospital capacity."

Instead of "protecting what matter's most," the PC plans mean that hospitals are being especially targeted.

SOURCE Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (CUPE)