No respite for Ontario patients: new report says five times more hospital beds needed than planned by Ford government

New analysis shows Ontario needs 16,800 additional hospital beds by 2032 but only 3,000 have been planned by the Ontario PCs even as hallway healthcare reaches record high

BELLEVILLE, ON –(COMMUNITYWIRE)– Ontario’s hospital capacity crisis will worsen in the coming years as government funding will fall short of even maintaining current levels of service, according to a new research report released by CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE) in Belleville today.

Citing latest data on hospital funding, bed capacity, staffing levels, admission times, and other metrics, the report shows declining levels of service and warns that the “worst is yet to come.”

“The data paints a dire picture. There is a massive gap between what Ontarians need and what this government plans to do,” said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU/CUPE. “People are already paying the consequences for the Ontario PC policy of scarcity and it’s only going to get worse: we’ll see longer wait-times, more patients on stretchers in hallways, and fewer staff to provide care.”

The union says that based on the government’s own plans, there is a looming capacity shortfall of 13,800 hospital beds.

“Has the government given up on the hospital crisis?”

Accounting for multiple factors including population growth (which accounts for half of Ontario’s economic growth) and population aging, the report estimates that Ontario needs about 16,800 additional hospital beds by 2032. However, as repeatedly stated by health minister Sylvia Jones, the government plans to increase capacity by just 3,000 beds – or one-fifth of what is required based on OCHU/CUPE’s estimates.

This is despite the fact that Ontario’s hallway health care problem is worse than ever, with an average of 2,000 patients a day receiving care in makeshift spaces due to lack of beds and staff, double the level when Ford was elected.

“In 2018, Ford said he would end hallway healthcare. In 2024, he’s joking about veterinary hospitals handling overflow,” said Hurley. “It begs the question: has this government given up on the hospital crisis? What is their plan to address the suffering of people due to the state of our under-resourced hospitals?”

Ontario currently has 2.23 hospital beds per 1,000 people, which is marginally lower than the 2.25 beds it had just prior to COVID in 2019. “The hospital capacity crisis is also compounded by a lack of new long-term care beds,” notes the report, with a 20 per cent increase in the waitlist since the Ontario PCs came to power in 2018.

The situation in Belleville

In Quinte, the union says, an additional 6 beds per year for the next 10 years and 43 staff per year  simply to maintain current levels of service (which wouldn’t solve the crisis).

At the Quinte Health site in Belleville, the average wait-time for admission via the emergency room is 16 hours, with the hospital failing to meet the target time of eight hours for 73 per cent of patients in July 2024.

Rising vacancies and looming staff shortages

Vacancies continue to rise in the hospital sector as 22,330 jobs remain unfilled across the province. The number of vacancies has grown 17 per cent over the past year, and 534 per cent since 2015.

Hurley noted that an internal government document (which it tried to keep secret) from May this year showed a looming shortage of more than 80,000 nurses and personal support workers by 2032, with no plan to recruit or retain workers.

He said that instead of taking requisite measures, the government has been “releasing misinformation” about adding staff.

Government officials have been saying the province has “added 30,000 nurses” in the past two years, but Hurley pointed out that figure simply looks at new registrants without accounting for nurses who have deregistered or have stopped practicing. Citing the latest College of Nurses data from August 2024, Hurley said the number of practicing nurses has only increased by 11,263 (63% less than the government’s claim).

“The government is cherry-picking data,” he said. “The most relevant metric here is the number of nurses practicing in the field, and that isn’t keeping pace with patient needs. The reality is the government is doing nothing to retain staff, who are increasingly demoralized in the face of ongoing cutbacks.”

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For more information, contact:

Zaid Noorsumar, CUPE Communications
znoorsumar@cupe.ca
647-995-9859