The Ontario Health Coalition issued another call to the province to address the staffing shortage in hospitals, during an online town hall Wednesday.
Town hall organizers also raised concerns about the potential privatization of some hospital services.
Their call, made during one of a series of town halls across Ontario, comes a couple of months after Ontario’s health minister Sylvia Jones said the government was exploring “innovation and opportunities” for healthcare system changes, but did not specify what those would be.
Meanwhile, during the town hall, the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA) said there are more than 140 Registered Nurse (RN) vacancies in the Kitchener and Waterloo area right now.
“In the Kitchener Waterloo area, we’ve had a workload for nurses at the highest level it’s ever been due to the staffing shortages,” said Angela Preocanin, first vice-president of the ONA. “There are over 140 vacancies for RN’s, and the working conditions make it impossible to fill them. We are hearing that some postings get taken down with zero applicants. This is just not sustainable”.
Earlier this month, the ONA said the staffing problems have been getting worse as the vacancy numbers increase.
It is estimated there are over 400 nursing vacancies across Waterloo region and Brant County – with the Brant Community Healthcare System recently noting there were 271 job vacancies, of which 178 were for nurses.
