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Vote SDSG: Is the well of support for rural Ontario hospitals dry?
Posted: February 27, 2025
(February 26, 2025) By: Shawna O’Neill, Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
SDG has two rural hospitals, each of which has faced financial and staffing challenges since the last Ontario election. We asked Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry candidates to offer their solutions.
Of the 136 public hospitals in Ontario, 56 are considered rural.
Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry has one rural hospital in its riding, being the Winchester District Memorial Hospital (WDMH), and one just outside of its electoral district in Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, being the Hôpital Glengarry Memorial Hospital (HGMH).
The Ottawa Citizen first reported that during pre-budget consultations with members of Ontario’s Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs in Ottawa last month, WDMH president and CEO Cholly Boland spoke about the hospital’s challenges, asking the province increase its budget for small hospitals by 10 per cent.
Posting a deficit since 2021, the WDMH has been making debt payments on a line of credit worth around $10 million. After years of posting a balanced budget, and making careful changes such as reducing inpatient bed capacity, Boland told the committee: “the well went dry, we couldn’t squeeze any more out of the budget and we went into deficit.
“Our financial situation is literally risking our ability to operate as a hospital to serve all our communities and be an effective partner with city hospitals.”
This case and plight for stable, multi-year funding is unfortunately not unique, as the Ottawa Citizen reported many hospitals across the province, especially rural ones, were operating under a deficit at the start of 2024, despite hospitals having a fiduciary duty to run balanced budgets.
Staffing challenges
With traditionally positive patient satisfaction ratings, the WDMH was named Ontario’s top performer in maternity care in a 2011-12 report from NRC Picker Canada and the Ontario Hospital Association. Fast forward to 2024, the popular WDMH birthing unit made headlines when the Ontario Nurses’ Association said nursing shortages were creating an unsafe working environment for staff in the department. From 2022-24, the five-bed unit was closed for a collective 763 hours because of staff shortages.
“Our financial situation is literally risking our ability to operate as a hospital to serve all our communities and be an effective partner with city hospitals.” WDMH president and CEO Cholly Boland
Looking east to the HGMH, the Alexandria hospital shut down its emergency room overnight on multiple occasions throughout 2022 due to being short staffed. Since 2022, at least 38 hospitals that have ERs or urgent-care centres (UCCs), mostly in rural communities, have experienced closures. This has rendered patients in the community vulnerable, and possibly subject to greater travel and wait time, if an emergency were to arise when their ER or UCC was shut down.
In June of last year, the Ontario Health Coalition held a public hearing calling on recommendations for the future of local hospitals, including those operating in small, rural, and northern Ontario communities. Last November, the Cornwall/SDG chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition saw its Trojan horse arrive in Cornwall. Members spoke out against the privatization of hospital surgeries and diagnostic tests, demanding the Ford government invest further in its public hospital staffing and capacity needs.
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“We hope to help ensure that this election focuses on solutions to this crisis.” CUPE/OCHU president Michael Hurley
The Cornwall/SDG chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition has been active in its advocacy efforts and dialogue surrounding hospital needs. This includes hosting an Emergency Summit in 2022 pushing back on privatization, and participating in a provincewide, citizen-led referendum in response to the Ontario government’s Bill 60 in 2023.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) / Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) suggests the per-person hospital funding in Ontario is the lowest in Canada, and that Ontario has the fewest beds and hospital staff to population.
“The crisis in health care affects almost every family,” says Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE, in a press release. “The entire health-care sector is staggering. There is no end to the staffing shortages; ER closures, waits for surgeries, or for long-term care beds, or for a family doctor, or for appropriate home care services. We hope to help ensure that this election focuses on solutions to this crisis.”
Candidates’ views
Ontario NDP candidate Jeremy Rose said the funding for health-care support is available but called out Premier Doug Ford’s PC Party of Ontario government for rationing what it allocates to public hospitals while increasing funding to private clinics.
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“We need… to evaluate the effectiveness of long-distance heath care.” Jeremy Rose
“In one egregious case in 2023, at (The Ottawa Hospital’s Riverside Campus)… the hospital rented out its OR to a private consortium, which performed surgeries,” said Rose. “This is a blatant policy on the government’s part to stimulate and support the private for-profit hospital model, with funds that should go to our public hospitals.”
Rose said the current funding model destabilizes public hospitals and drives people to seek alternate, for-profit care. Rose said the NDPs would rebuild and support the public health-care system, especially supporting community hospitals and departments where 24/7 care is available.
“We need… to evaluate the effectiveness of long-distance heath care and measure its adequacy to those in need, especially in emergency situations,” said Rose. “In 2023, there were 1,199 closures of local hospital ERs, birthing units, and UCCs. By December 2024, the number of closures had broken all records (in the province).”
Similarly, Ontario Liberal Party candidate Devon Monkhouse said Doug Ford has failed on his seven-year promise to end hallway health care.
“The situation has become dire in Ontario,” he said, highlighting the growing need for family doctors across the province.
“You deserve better, Cornwall deserves better.” Devon Monkhouse
Monkhouse said his party is looking to double the number of internationally trained doctors in Ontario, incentivize doctors to serve in rural and northern communities, create two new medical schools to double the number of medical residencies in the province, and more. For Cornwall, he would also like to see doctors stop penalizing patients if they seek care at a walk-in clinic.
“You deserve better, Cornwall deserves better, Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals are promising to build a better health-care system for Ontario,” he said.
Green Party of Ontario candidate Nicholas Lapierre said an individual approach to funding and support needs to be taken for hospitals. If elected, he would spend time getting to know the exact needs of the three hospitals in our region, and bring those requests and concerns to Queen’s Park.
“In public institutions like hospitals and colleges, they have done so well with so little that it has become the standard now they’re expected to do less with more all the time. And we are just running on empty. It’s getting to a point where for things to improve, they need to break terribly first,” he said.
“Listen, I am terrified of that.”
Taking a proactive approach towards supporting health care, rather than reactive, is something Lapierre would like capitalize on. As well, he would like to discuss broad economic solutions, and look at the education system to see areas where health-care workers could graduate their skills more easily, possibly moving from a personal support worker (PSW) role to a registered practical nurse (RPN) position, or registered nurse (RN).
“It sounds like a little bit of an apprenticeship model. And I don’t know if that’s something we can do easily. But then again, maybe we have to stop looking at the easy things and looking at the hard things, and do those instead,” he said.
New Blue Party candidate Stefan Kohut said he wants to see any health-care workers let go due to not being in compliance with COVID-19 vaccine mandates rehired.
The local numbers affected by these policies were in the dozens, out of thousands of hospital staff members. The need for staff and tapering off of the pandemic has led many mandates to be rescinded, and many of those impacted by them have been able to return to the sector if they chose to do so.
“These small hospitals work hard to fundraise and are often a source of pride for the community.” Stefan Kohut
Kohut said he would also like to see an end to vaccine mandates that still exist in Ontario’s hospitals as this would help to address staffing shortages.
“A New Blue government supports clearing the backlog of procedures by offering choice in health-care services, including private health care options,” he said.
Residing in Winchester, Kohut wants to see more funding for the WDMH and other rural hospitals in order “to relieve congestion in major hospitals… these small hospitals work hard to fundraise and are often a source of pride for the community. Often people from the metropolitan areas come to the country hospitals to avoid the long wait times in metropolitan hospitals. Furthermore, it allows for a regional specialization.”
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Incumbent MPP and PC Party of Ontario candidate Nolan Quinn said he plans to remain an outspoken advocate for local health care and hospitals, as he has been since elected in 2022.
“We are blessed to be served by three outstanding hospitals in our region: the Cornwall Community Hospital (CCH), WDMH, as well as HGMH,” he said. “All three hospitals play an important role in ensuring the people of SDSG get the care they need close to home.”
“A re-elected PC government understands the challenges in staffing faced by rural areas of Ontario.” Nolan Quinn
Quinn said the PC government invested $85 billion into publicly funded health care in 2024, and that making improvements and investments to the province’s health-care system would remain a priority.
“A re-elected PC government understands the challenges in staffing faced by rural areas of Ontario. Our government has been focused on ensuring that rural areas in Ontario are able to recruit the staffing that is needed. One such initiative is our Ontario Learn & Stay Grant implementation that has had over 6,500 health-care students commit to working in an under-served region of Ontario, and in turn, the government provided tuition support,” said Quinn, who was the minister of colleges and universities when the writs for this election were issued.
Over 100,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors have registered to work in Ontario since 2018, said Quinn. His government is also looking to expand on medical-school residency seats to help bolster healthcare ranks into the future.
Ontario Party candidate Brigitte Sugrue said she was unable to comment before time of publication.
