The executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition says there are two major things the next provincial government must do to fix our broken health care system.
Natalie Mehra stopped in Sarnia on Tuesday during her province-wide tour in advance of the June 7 provincial election.
"The first thing that must be done is to turn the corner on hospital cuts," she says. "People are suffering. The standard of care in emergency departments is outrageous. There is no privacy. Doctors are telling me they're treating patients in chairs in the Emergency Department because all of the stretchers are full. No one in the world runs their hospitals in this way."
The second thing that must be done is to add more long-term care beds to meet the demands of an aging population.
"There are 34,000 people on the waiting list, families, parents with Alzheimer's who cannot cope in the home anymore," says Mehra. "The elderly who are getting into danger living alone at home, waiting for months or even years to access long-term care"
Mehra says Local Health Integration Networks have outlived their usefulness and should be disbanded.
She says the electorate can make a difference by demanding answers from their candidates on two key issues of stopping hospital funding cuts and increasing long-term care beds.