The Premier’s recent comments in the media shows “a callous attitude” towards the hospital crisis, where overcrowding has increased by 30 percent since 2018, said Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, OCHU-CUPE, referring to Doug Ford’s gaffe about overflow patients having the option of receiving treatment at a new veterinary hospital.

Hurley was speaking at a virtual media conference to release the findings of a new peer-reviewed study, which warns that Ontario’s staffing crisis is harming workers’ well-being and compromising patient care.  

Running on Empty, published in New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy, is co-authored by Dr. Margaret Keith and Dr. James Brophy, who since 2017 have spearheaded three previous studies on working conditions in Ontario’s health care sector. Dr. Craig Slatin, a U.S. health researcher, is a co-investigator.

“Health care workers are warning us about the future of our public system,” said Dr. Keith. “They expressed a profound sense of dissatisfaction, despair, sorrow, anger, and frustration about their working conditions and the quality of patient care. There was an overarching sense of being unsupported, overworked, and disrespected, which is being driven by chronic underfunding and understaffing.”

Ontario ranks at or near the bottom of the country in key healthcare funding measures and has the lowest per-person hospital spending of any province, with 18 per cent less hospital staff compared to the rest of Canada, noted Dr. Keith.

The study says that although staffing concerns predate the pandemic, working conditions have worsened since 2020 as patient volumes have surged without a sufficient increase in staffing. Consequently, workers are perpetually asked to take care of more patients and work overtime, causing exhaustion and burnout.

A worker quoted in the study said, “Our phones never stop ringing being asked if we can come in and cover a shift. You can be leaving work and get a call before you even get to the parking lot asking, ‘Can you stay?’ You can do that once in a while, but it’s literally every day.’”

As staffing shortages cause unprecedented emergency room closures, long wait-times, and higher number of patients per staff, workers witness a marked decline in quality of care. An operating room nurse told the researchers:

“We see individuals who have been sitting in their beds for a day or two, sometimes three or four, because the operating rooms get so clogged. And when that individual gets to us they’re so filthy, they reek of their own feces. The beds haven’t been changed or the individual has not been properly turned and positioned. They’re getting pressure ulcers, which a patient should never get in the hospital.”

The research was done in collaboration with the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions-Canadian Union of Public Employees (OCHU-CUPE), based on extensive interviews with 26 hospital workers including nurses, personal support workers, housekeepers and clerical staff.

The findings of the qualitative study complemented recent polling of 775 OCHU-CUPE members, 62% of whom said they were dealing with exhaustion and high stress levels; 41% reporting they dread going to work; and 44% saying they had trouble sleeping.

“The sharp decline in their working conditions is harming their mental and physical well-being. But what is particularly jarring is the feeling of being abandoned by the government and often their own employers,” said Dr. Brophy. “It’s like your house is on fire, and everyone can see it, but no one’s coming to help. It makes you lose faith in the system.”

Union chides Premier for callous comments

“The Premier promised in the last election to end hallway medicine. Today 1,400 patients are

on stretchers in hallways” Hurley said.

Hurley said hospital capacity is strained by the staffing crisis that could get much worse with a looming shortage of 70,700 nurses and personal support workers by 2027 based on a leaked government document.

“You would think the government would be tackling the problem on a war footing and mobilizing all of its resources,” he said. “But even as the finance minister says the province’s finances are in excellent shape, PC funding for hospitals is not enough to maintain existing service levels, let alone improve the quality of care.”

The union also highlighted the government for “releasing misinformation” in response to the findings of the study.

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.”