2007 Ontario Spending Spree Budget
Health and Long-Term Care
Acute care hospitals are at 98 per cent capacity, preventing admission of emergency patients and causing surgical cases to be cancelled because there are no beds available. This budget fails to address Dalton McGuinty’s election promise to take pressure off our hospitals so Ontario’s citizens won’t spend long hours waiting in overcrowded emergency rooms for necessary care.
Despite a dire shortage of long-term care beds in Ontario – which is forcing seniors into hospitals and causing panic among our most vulnerable citizens and their families – Dalton McGuinty’s re-announcement of 1,750 new long term care beds won’t deliver needed beds until December 2009. This offers little comfort to families. In the Quinte region alone, families are today dealing with a wait list of 967 names.
Dalton McGuinty has failed to ensure he keeps his promises to ensure we have enough nurses. While Ontario’s nurses are being lured to other jurisdictions that provide more incentives, Dalton McGuinty is offering new nurses only short-term 7.5-month contracts.
Dalton McGuinty’s one-time funding of $64 million for e-Health fails to meet the Ontario Health Association’s call for a major long-term investment.
The $34 million allocated in the budget to improve access to health professionals falls short of a needed long-term plan for the 1.2 million people of Ontario still without a family doctor.
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