News Release: Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli again pressed the Wynne government over recent cuts at the North Bay Regional Health Centre in a Members’ Statement in the Ontario Legislature.
The text of Fedeli’s statement is as follows:
Thank you, Speaker. Residents in my riding were shocked last month, Speaker, when it was announced that nearly 160 full-time jobs would be cut from the North Bay Regional Health Centre. As I’ve stated before in this House, this now makes more than 350 frontline jobs cut at this five-year-old hospital, including 100 nurses.
The City of North Bay passed a resolution recently calling on this government to take action. North Bay City Council believes the benchmarks the province has set are forcing these cuts upon the hospital, and that the province has an obligation to the health and well-being of the people served by this hospital.
As a result, Council has asked the province “to make adjustments to the financial targets and expectations of the local health centre that could lead to some maintenance of service levels”, and to “respect the Hospital’s request for one-time transitional funding.”
Speaker, I understand there are discussions ongoing with the local LHIN – this is a bureaucracy that spent $4.7 million last year without seeing even one patient I might add – and they’re meeting regarding the situation at the hospital. But without this one-time funding for severances, we will see 50 more frontline workers fired from the North Bay Regional Health Centre.
This government needs to get its priorities straight and stop the frontline health care cuts in my riding and across the province.
