A new investment of 1,200 hospital beds across Ontario hospitals is of “cold comfort” to patients, according to Timmins-James Bay MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP).

Of those 1,200 beds, eight of them are earmarked for the Timmins and District Hospital.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins says the $100 million dollar investment is the equivalent of opening six medium-sized hospitals and the majority of these beds will be “up and running in two to four weeks.”

Bisson says the investment shows the Liberals are finally bending to pressure from families and New Democrats.

But ultimately, he says this action is too little too late from a Liberal government that has let down families throughout the province.

Bisson says hospital overcrowding has reached crisis levels throughout the province, adding it’s not good news when the government refuses to do something and only reacts when there’s a crisis.

“Only when (NDP Leader Andrea Horwath) stands in this house asking question after question, members of this caucus, people across Ontario, hospital CEOs and others who have been saying for years, saying ‘you have underfunded the hospital system,'” he said, “So now because there’s an election coming this spring, you’re finally doing something and announcing beds in Timmins—of course we’re going to take them.”

“Last week in Timmins, a 16-year-old boy with mental health needs had to be treated in the emergency ward because there were no beds in that hospital to treat him,” Bisson added.

“(Wednesday) morning, we hear that there are eight new beds being announced in the city of Timmins, but that’s cold comfort to patients who are continually having to be treated in the same way, getting hallway medicine rather than getting the beds that they need to be treated. No one, especially not a 16-year-old with so much life ahead of them, should suffer in today’s Ontario because of the lack of access to proper health care.”

He asks if the Liberals will admit they’re not doing enough.

The province is also spending $40 million more on home care services in addition to $24 million to create 600 transitional spaces to provide specialized care outside of hospitals and 200 spaces for supportive housing for seniors, Hoskins said. The transitional spaces will be in long-term care homes, or will take the form of specialized care provided in a patient’s own home.

See the full exchange below.

(With files from The Canadian Press)

Filed under: Local News