Closures to health services amounted to 30,000 hours of lost care: Ontario Health Coalition

The Ontario Health Coalition is sounding the alarm over the amount of closures to health care services this year, amounting to the equivalent of 30,000 lost hours of care.

According to their report, there were 867 temporary emergency department closures and one permanent, 316 urgent care centre closures, two outpatient laboratory closures, one ICU closure and one labour and delivery unit closure.

“These closures are staggering, the numbers are like nothing we’ve seen before,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “They mean, without question, that people’s lives have been put at risk.”

The Ontario Health Coalition say these nearly 1,200 closures across the province happened between Jan 1. and Nov 24th. They held a rally outside Queen’s Park on Tuesday to call attention to the loss of vital health care services.

“Three years ago, emergency department closures were completely unheard of,” shared Mehra. “In my 27-year career, there’s been maybe one that I can remember in all those years. So they’re getting more frequent [and] they’re getting longer.”

One of the most high-profile closures happened in Minden when their ER permanently closed on June 1. The closest access to emergency services for residents in that area is in Haliburton which is 25 kilometres away.

“It’s like there’s this overall community sort of gasp of, ‘What if I fall? What if grandma falls? What if my grandson falls off a dirt bike?’ said Richard Bradley, a resident of the Minden area. “It’s a community on the edge,, and it’s fear, it really is fear.”

The health coalition also said staffing shortages were one of the immediate causes of the closure, something health care advocates have been warning the government about since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles challenged the government on the Ontario Health Coalition’s findings during Question Period on Tuesday.

“The Ontario Health Coalition blames these closures on, and I’m going quote them, ‘unprecedented failure of leadership by this government’,” said Stiles.

In response, Health Minister Sylvia Jones said, “It is disruptive for community but that is exactly why our government has made such a conscious effort and investments in our hospital systems.” She added they’ve had an average increase of four per cent in their hospital budgets.

“I think the minister is totally out of touch. She’s spinning a good line but it’s not reflecting the reality of what Ontarians are experiencing out there,” Stiles said in response after Question Period.

A spokesperson for the health minister added the government is investing $44 million to help emergency departments stay open. But opposition leaders and advocacy groups are calling on the government to can its plan to move some OHIP-covered surgeries to private clinics, and to instead use that money to fund the public system.

With files from Meredith Bond