06/02/2026
"Ontario hospitals are facing a deepening funding crisis, and the result is longer wait times at emergency departments, fewer hospital staff members, and declining patient care.
..Provincial funding is not keeping up. Hospital costs are rising at about 6% each year, but the Ontario government is only funding the hospital sector up to 4%. This leaves a large funding gap, which translates into real spending cuts.
Since labour costs make up more than 70 per cent of total hospital expenses, hospitals are being put in the unenviable position of having to try to maintain services while cutting costs. But it simply can't be done.
Public hospitals are having to make the difficult decision to lay off staff and reduce services.
At Markham Stouffville, the hospital cut 65 jobs. In North Bay, the hospital has cut about 40 positions as well as cutting back hours for medical imaging, which is necessary for patient diagnosis and reducing wait times. In March, Toronto's University Health Network laid off 28 registered nurses who provided specialized kidney care.
The result is sadly predictable: Staffing cuts due to provincial underfunding come at the expense of timely access to hospital care. In fact, over the last five years, emergency room wait times have increased by 67%. And some communities are even worse off: In Perth and Smiths Falls, waits have increased by 91%.
The significant increase in emergency room waiting times clearly shows a system under strain, unable to cope with the demand for hospital care. And the longer patients languish in the emergency room waiting to be admitted, the risks of deteriorating health status, poorer outcomes, and even death, increase.
There are multiple causes for the stunning growth in hospital admission wait times, but the provincial government's funding austerity is the main one.
It is a vicious cycle that creates other negative outcomes: Deteriorating care conditions create worsening working conditions for healthcare workers, which drives the healthcare retention crisis.
As the gap grows between the level of care that healthcare providers want to give and the actual level of care they can give, workers leave the profession. Between 2016 and 2024, hospital job vacancies doubled.
The ball is in the provincial government's court. It has the power to address the provincial funding crisis that's undermining patient access to care.
The crisis rippling across Ontario shouldn't sentence Ontarians to reduced access to medical care. Yet that is precisely how provincial funding austerity is playing out across the province.
Ontario is the province that spends the least on health care on a perperson basis. This has to change.
The provincial government has a responsibility to invest in Ontario's public hospitals to ensure that Ontarians across the province can access healthcare services in a timely manner."
- Excerpts from opinion piece by Andrew Longhurst, CCPA Researcher, published in The Hamilton Spectator
