May 14 Day of Action Press Conference to Stop Hospital Closures in Ontario

On Wednesday May 14, people from across Ontario headed to the Ontario Legislature for a “Day of Action” to ask the Ford government to stop closing their local hospitals and to provide the resources needed for the overcrowded remaining hospitals. People came in from towns where emergency departments, urgent care centres, inpatient beds and other critical services are being closed down. Others came in from communities where their hospital is running at more than 100% capacity without resources to provide for patients.

Vitally important hospital services are continuing to close and entire local hospitals that have lasted for almost a hundred years, built by their local communities, are under threat. In Ontario, emergency departments and urgent care centres now routinely close overnight, on weekends, and even permanently. Some close without warning to their communities. The inpatient beds in Thessalon and the town of Durham have closed. Fort Erie and Port Colborne urgent care services have permanently closed overnight and other hospital services in the Niagara region are under threat. The situation has not improved. In 2024, there were record breaking numbers of closures: 1,117 emergency department closures, 1,001 urgent care centre closures, three obstetrics unit closures, one ambulance base closure, one inpatient bed closure, and one labour and delivery unit closure. That is worse than even 2023 and 2022. Prior to 2021 emergency department closures were so rare as to be unheard of.

At the same time, the Ford government has set no standard requiring services to remain open. The province funds public hospitals at the lowest rate per person out of all the provinces and territories while shunting more than 200% funding increases to private for-profit clinics. Small, rural and northern hospitals are dependent on locum funding that is short term and has often been belatedly announced at the last minute. There continues to be no plan to fix the hospital crisis.