Doug Ford Will Cut Wait Times for the People
“The first thing we’re going to do is listen to health care professionals, including the nurses and doctors who are on the frontlines,” said Ford. “We’re then going to cut wait times by opening up new long-term care beds across the province. This will ensure that people who need care can always get the best possible care, while taking the strain off our hospitals for everybody else.”
Under Doug Ford’s Plan for the People, an Ontario PC Government will invest in 15,000 new long-term care beds in five years, and 30,000 new beds over the next 10 years.
Ford contrasted his commitment to frontline health care to the out-of-control spending, scandals and waste that have defined Kathleen Wynne’s mismanagement of the health care system. Over the last 15 years the total number of Assistant Deputy Ministers at the Ministry of Health has grown from six to 21.
“If your kid has a fever or your mom has a fall, you don’t go down to the Ministry of Health to have it looked at — instead you go to your local doctors and nurses,” said Ford. “If Kathleen Wynne had invested in doctors and nurses and patients the same way she has invested in new senior health care bureaucrats, then every town would have a doctor, wait times would be a thing of the past and patients wouldn’t be stuck on stretchers in our hospital hallways.”
“Ontario’s health care system deserves change that will respect patients, and health care professionals,” said Ford. “My message to the people who are waiting, and the people who are frustrated, is that change is coming and help is on the way.”
April 20, 2018
The Liberals Have Neglected Our Healthcare System:
- The number of seniors in Ontario will double by 2041 from 2.3 million to 4.6 million people.[1]
- Despite this increased pressure on our healthcare system, Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals responded to this challenge by freezing hospital budgets for four straight years and have made no investments in long-term care capacity.
- Without adequate long-term care facilities, hospitals are forced to keep patients who should be cared for in these facilities. This causes massive overcrowding and has led hospitals to keep patients in hallways and even storage closets.
- The Sault Area Hospital has been at capacity levels as high as 116%,[2] more than 4,300 people were treated in hallways last year at Brampton Civic Holiday,[3] and patients at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie are spending more than 40 days in hospital unnecessarily waiting for long-term care beds to become available.[4]
- Kathleen Wynne did not care to address this problem until it started to cause her political problems.
- She claims to care about health care, but she refused to invest in new-long term care beds until the problem became too big to ignore.
- Instead, she increased the size of the health bureaucracy and chose to reward her friends and insiders with new unnecessary agencies instead of investing in real solutions to the problem.
How We Will Fix It:
- A Doug Ford Ontario PC Government will cut hospital wait times by ending hallway medicine to free up beds.
- He will do this by building 15,000 long-term care beds within five yearsand 30,000 beds over 10 years.
- More long-term care beds located across the province will ease the burden on hospitals, allow doctors and nurses to work to their fullest abilities, and improve healthcare for Ontario families and patients when they need it most.