Group accuses Ontario of under funding hospitals, Report

Hospital funding in Ontario is much lower than hospital funding in the rest of Canada – $4.8 billion lower.

There should be about 1,600 more staff at London hospitals according to the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions of CUPE.

The council’s president Michael Hurley says local hospitals have shortfalls of 406 nurses and 1,200 hospital staff because of a $129-million a year funding gap in the Forrest City.

“People who use the London hospitals experience this in terms of delays, in terms of waits, in terms of being pushed out of hospital prematurely,” says Hurley.

He says the provincial government created its revenue crisis people are paying for now.

“Cuts to the hospital budgets really accelerated when Ontario made a decision to bring its level of corporate taxes to the lowest level in North America,” says Hurley. “They overreached with that.”

Hurley was in Windsor and London on Thursday part of a campaign by the OCHU calling on the province to correct the underfunding of hospitals it puts at $4.8-billion.

Agencies/Canadajournal