RELEASE: Health Care System Besieged by COVID-19: Health Coalition demands Ford answer for lack of action

Posted: January 20, 2022

(January 20, 2022)

Toronto – There are more than 4,000 patients with COVID-19 in Ontario’s hospitals, an all time high for this pandemic. Staffing levels across hospitals, long-term care and home care are catastrophic. Yet there is still no response from the Ford government except to talk about lifting public health measures.

There are 594 patients fighting for their lives in ICUs due to COVID-19. Yesterday, 75 Ontarians – 3 per hour – died as a result of COVID-19. Public Health reports that 59 people died the day before. The day before that? 37.

There are currently 970 outbreaks in hospitals, long-term care homes and retirement homes, also an all time high for this pandemic, and that number is also going up.

“We are in a far worse place in health care than we were last year at this time,” noted Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “Yet the messaging from the Ford government appears to be driven by self-serving politics. This pandemic will end. But right now, we are in a health system catastrophe, and this government has done virtually nothing to help get care to patients in need. We need accountability. We need answers. We need leadership in the public interest — not electioneering — right now.”

The Coalition, along with organizations representing more than a million Ontarians on the front lines of the health care crisis, forged a list of concrete measures that would make a difference in the health care staffing emergency and released it last Friday. To date, the Ford government has not responded and has not acted on them.