Bonnie Crombie commits to ending the deadly crisis in hospitals and emergency rooms by investing in healthcare workers and the infrastructure we need
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 12, 2025
TORONTO – Today, Bonnie Crombie outlined her plan to end hallway healthcare in Ontario.
Hospitals in Ontario are so overcrowded that patients are being treated on floors, in chairs, in hallways, in break rooms and supply closets. Even gymnasiums in community centres adjacent to medical centres are being used to help sick people. Standing in a gym in downtown Toronto, surrounded by 100 waiting room chairs, each with a real patient story detailing the desperate state of healthcare in Doug Ford’s Ontario, Crombie promised to finally end hallway healthcare.
“Seven years ago, Doug Ford promised to end hallway healthcare and he didn’t get it done,” Crombie said. “I will. What I am hearing from people all across Ontario is heartbreaking. It’s not acceptable. And we can and must do better.”
“I’ve received emails from people who have watched other patients die in a hallway, from a daughter whose mother passed away after being forced out of an overcrowded hospital too soon, from far, far too many who cannot find a family doctor,” Crombie said. “Enough is enough. It’s time to stop the giveaways, to stop spending your money on booze and mega spas and tunnels to nowhere and to do what really matters in Ontario again: get healthcare right.”
Ontario’s Liberals will end hallway healthcare in Ontario by:
- Pay all nurses and PSWs a living wage so we can train and retain the support our system needs to provide care. Instead of fighting our healthcare workers in court over unconstitutional wage freezes Bonnie Crombie will fight to keep nurses, PSWs, and other healthcare workers in our public system.
- Ensure wage parity across the system so that regardless of whether you work for a hospital, in-home care, or in long-term care, you’re paid a fair, living wage.
Investing in hospital infrastructure as part of our economic plan
- Invest in the real infrastructure we need, including hospital repairs and expansions, as part of her plan to build Ontario’s economy and prepare us to withstand looming tariffs from the United States.
- Hiring 3,100 new doctors, doubling residency spaces, and helping foreign-trained doctors get accredited to work in Ontario sooner, keeping people with minor ailments out of our overcrowded ER.
“We can fix healthcare in Ontario. But to do that, we need to make it a priority,” Crombie said. “We have to treat this crisis in our system as the deadly epidemic that it is – and take a wartime approach to getting this right. No one in Ontario should die on a stretcher in a hallway. We can – and we will – do so much better.”