Nipissing NDP candidate Henri Giroux today slammed the PC's on health care.
Giroux for Nipissing and Gilles Bisson for Timmins were at the North Bay Regional Health Centre saying Doug Ford owes it to families to be upfront about what he is going to cut from community hospitals.
“Doug Ford’s cuts will mean North Bay Regional Health Centre will lose at least 92 health care workers and 16 beds,” said Nipissing NDP candidate Henri Giroux.
“Doug Ford’s election promise is to make these massive cuts that will hurt all of our families,” stated Giroux in a news release.
“Our waits for health care are too long, as it is. We can’t let Doug Ford and his PCs hurt so many families in Nipissing and across Northern Ontario,” said Gilles Bisson, NDP candidate for Timmins. “We need to come together to stop these dangerous cuts. And we need to come together to vote for change that makes life better.”
The NDP candidates said that Ford’s $6 billion in cuts from government spending will inevitably mean closing hospitals, firing nurses and frontline staff.
Giroux says the NDP’s Change for the Better plan to fix health care in Northern Ontario includes the following steps:
- Increase hospital funding immediately by 5.3 per cent with a new $1.2 billion additional investment province-wide
- Ensure every hospital’s annual funding keeps pace with inflation, population growth and includes the unique needs of each community, such as aging populations
- Invest $19 billion for new health care facilities and expansions
- Create 2,000 new hospital beds right now
- End arbitrary caps on surgeries to shorten wait times
Nipissing PC candidate Vic Fedeli says the last time the NDP was in government they closed 10,000 hospital beds.
"I can say that our plan has an increase in the hiring of doctors, an increase in nurses, so there are no cuts," said Fedeli in a release.
"Our budget will be paid for through efficiencies that we find, but we will hire doctors and nurses."
