The leader of Ontario's New Democrats blames chronic underfunding of the health care system for what she calls a growing hospital wait time "crisis" in the province.
In an election campaign style stop in London on Monday, Andrea Horwath said she was sounding the alarm over a $113-million funding shortfall at the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) that has led to frontline staff cuts and extended wait times for surgeries, tests, and treatments.
“Patients are waiting at every stage of their care and hallway medicine has become common," said Horwath.
Surrounded by local New Democrat MPPs Peggy Sattler and Teresa Armstrong, the NDP leader stated that the LHSC has been operating over 100% capacity for acute-care and mental health beds for the past five years. According to Horwath, research shows 85% is the maximum safe capacity. The issue can be traced back to the Premier Kathleen Wynne's decision to freeze Ontario hospital budgets for four years, Horwath said.
"Hospitals have been severely under funded for over a decade now. It results in the kind of pain and suffering that we are seeing," said Horwath. "[The NDP] have made the commitment, we will at least be funding hospitals for inflation, for population growth, and for unique community needs."
Horwath said an NDP government would also put an immediate moratorium on cuts to frontline staff, such as registered nurses and personal support workers, and cap chief executive salaries.
London senior, Bev McCann has been waiting more than 18 months for a double-hip replacement and agrees that action needs to be taken to shorten wait times.
"The waiting room is full of people just like me and they all want their quality of life back," said McCann. "It has affected my life greatly. I miss playing golf. I miss doing a lot of activities that I'm use to doing like volunteering in the community, and I especially miss playing in the backyard with my grandson."
At this point, McCann has no idea when she will have her surgery.
"I would be very happy if I got one of my hips done this summer. At least get half of my body going again. It would give me a bit of a boost. It's difficult to have these things going on, they affect your everyday life," said McCann.
Concern for patient safety is shared by London family physician and President of the London and District Academy of Medicine Dr. Sharad Rai.
"If I want to refer one of my patients to urgent psychiatry, there is approximately a four week wait. That's for urgent psychiatry... so you can imagine what the wait is like for other services in the community," said Rai. "We have a very dire situation. It is directly tied to the government's chronic underfunding of the health care system. They need to fix it."
Whether it be under a Liberal, NDP, or Progressive Conservative government, Rai said the fix is clear - more money is needed for frontline staff and mental health services.
Statistics released by the NDP show the average wait time for hip replacement in London is 317 days, 135 more than the provincial target of 182 days. The wait for a simple MRI at the LHSC currently hovers around the 108 day mark. The provincial target is 28 days.