Report shows hallway medicine will keep getting worse under Ford

NDP Official Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath said a new report from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario (FAO) offers damning evidence that hallway medicine in the province is only going to keep getting worse under Doug Ford’s Conservatives.

 

The FAO report found that even if Ford delivers the 15,000 long-term care beds his government has claimed they might, the waitlist will keep ballooning. Four times that number of beds are needed — 55,000 more — just to maintain the awful status quo. What’s more, the hallway medicine crisis that has hospitals operating at more than 100 per cent capacity on a regular basis will go from bad to worse.

 

“Doug Ford was obviously just talking out of his hat when he said he’d end hallway medicine by next summer,” said Horwath. “This FAO report makes clear that the hallway medicine crisis the Liberals started is going to get worse with Ford in charge. More families in Ontario will face overcrowded hospitals, long waits for care, and hospital beds jammed into hallways and closets. And more families in Ontario will struggle to juggle kids, work and aging parents because they face impossible waits for long-term care, and no where else to go.

 

“The Liberals let families down by allowing the waitlist for long-term care to balloon and ignoring the growing hallway medicine crisis. Instead of making things better, Doug Ford is taking things from bad to worse with what amounts to promising a Band-Aid for a wound that requires surgery.”

 

Ford is planning to slash long-term care funding by $34 million by next year, when the FAO report shows the Conservatives’ spending on long-term care will need to increase by at least $1 billion.

This Media Release