Alarm bells are being sounded over a lack of funding for Ontario’s hospitals and the impact it’s having on timely patient care, including here in Windsor-Essex.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has released new analysis that highlights the impact of rising hospital deficits and government funding on overall patient care.
CCPA Senior Researcher Andrew Longhurst told a news conference Wednesday in Windsor the majority of Ontario’s 136 hospitals, including Windsor Regional Hospital, have carried operational deficits since 2022.
WRH ran budget deficits in two of the last three years, including a $38.4 million shortfall in 2024-25. A deficit of more than $20 million is being projected for 2025-2026.
Longhurst called emergency department wait times the canary in the coal mine for health system performance.
He noted that the hospital admission wait times at the Windsor Regional Hospital went up 72 per cent in five years since 2020-21, with 90 per cent of patients in emergency departments waiting 34 hours, up from 19.5 hours.
Longhurst says we need the provincial government to step up and invest in hospitals so patients can get the access that they need.
“We need to see $3.2 billion in additional funding for the hospital sector to address the funding crisis that we’re seeing. Deficits for the majority of hospitals over the last three years are putting them in an increasingly precarious position,” he says.
The CCPA also wants the province to provide six per cent annual increases to the hospital sector to account for population growth, aging, and inflation.
Longhurst says the provincial government appears to be quite dismissive of the situation.
“We know that Ontario funds its hospital system at the lowest per capita rate in the country and funds its overall health system at the lowest per capita rate in the country. This is not a distinction that I think Ontario wants to have,” he says.
Longhurst says cost pressures are increasing, and what the province is providing is simply not adequate.
“The fact that we’re seeing these wait times increase over the last five years, emergency departments are that window into how the healthcare system is performing. Right now, it’s not in a good place. We need to see that commitment, that $3.2 billion in investment from the provincial government,” he says.
The CCPA analysis notes that Ontario health care spending only rose to 7.6 per cent of GDP in 2023 from 7.4 per cent of GDP in 2014.
A spokesperson for the Minister of Health says “The claims made in the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ report are misguided.
Ontario has one of the largest publicly funded healthcare systems in the world, and our government is investing over $101 billion this year alone, including a 4% increase in the hospital sector for the fourth consecutive year, to connect people to the care they need when they need it. Since 2018, we have also increased funding Windsor Regional Hospital by over 35%.
We are proud to have one of the largest healthcare workforces in Canada, adding over 100,000 new nurses and nearly 20,000 new physicians since 2018, some of the shortest wait times for critical procedures, reducing the annual total volume of ED visits by nearly 200,000, with over 83% of people receiving surgery within the clinically recommended times, and the highest primary care attachment rate in the country.
We continue to build on this progress by getting shovels in the ground for over 50 hospital redevelopment projects, adding new MRI and CT machines in communities across the province, upskilling nurses to work in emergency departments, expanding programs like Learn and Stay and, taking bold action to make it easier to access care in the community, including allowing pharmacists to treat common ailments and our plan to connect every person to a primary care provider by 2029."
Click here to read the entire report from the CCPA.