Good morning. My question is to the Premier. The official opposition leader and London MPPs recently toured the Nazem Kadri Surgical Centre, a brilliant, first-of-its-kind outpatient clinic which deals with low-intensity, low-risk procedures in a high-quality interdisciplinary environment. It’s an ingenious, cost-effective way to help patients quickly while alleviating the burden on our precious health care system. Public funding and public delivery: the best bang for your buck.

To our surprise, we learned that the Premier and Minister of Health also visited the centre and said this was a model to replicate. We agree. So why aren’t they?

The surgical centre operates at half the cost of hospital ORs. They literally double the output, meaning twice as many happy, healthy patients, yet this government is prioritizing spending on for-profit surgery clinics and agency nursing companies which bleed the government dry. Why?

It’s my honour to present the following petition on behalf of Peri Ren, Samantha Bolger, Ayma Aqib and the class of 2025 medical students from the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at Western University. It’s titled, “Health Care: Not for Sale.

“To the Legislative Assembly of Ontario:

“Whereas Ontarians should get health care based on need—not the size of your wallet;

“Whereas Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones say they’re planning to privatize parts of health care;

“Whereas privatization will bleed nurses, doctors and PSWs out of our public hospitals, making the health care crisis worse;

“Whereas privatization always ends with patients getting a bill;

“Therefore we, the undersigned, petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to immediately stop all plans to privatize Ontario’s health care system, and fix the crisis in health care by:

“—repealing Bill 124 and recruiting, retaining, and respecting doctors, nurses and PSWs with better working conditions;

“—licensing tens of thousands of internationally educated nurses and other health care professionals already in Ontario, who wait years and pay thousands to have their credentials certified;

“—10 employer-paid sick days;

“—making education and training free or low-cost for nurses, doctors, and other health care professionals;

“—incentivizing doctors and nurses to choose to live and work in northern Ontario;

“—funding hospitals to have enough nurses on every shift, on every ward.”

I fully support this petition. I will affix my signature and deliver it with page Cyndi to the Clerks.

I’d like to thank the member from Nickel Belt for her excellent presentation about how it is wise and fiscally prudent to invest in community-based surgical centres. Not only did she highlight the safety and the continuity of care but also the better health outcomes. I would also like to thank the member for recognizing the great work of Dr. Abdel-Rahman Lawendy, the chief medical director of the Nazem Kadri Surgical Centre at London Health Sciences Centre.

Standard operating rooms are required for complex care, where there are six staff per room. They require a full set of sterilized instruments. It costs on average $469 per day, whereas these other ambulatory centres cost $172 per day. It’s 36% of the cost.

This government’s ideological adherence to the for-profit model—I wanted to ask the member, who is this government listening to, if it’s not listening to patients?

My question is to the Premier.

A London-area family recently received the horrifying assessment of sarcoma after an ultrasound showed a mass in their child’s leg. In order to properly diagnose, the oncologists ordered an MRI. But children who need an MRI at London Health Sciences Centre have to wait. Children who should have that service within 28 days are waiting, on average, 299 days—waiting for almost a year. How is this acceptable?

My question is back to the Premier.

I can’t imagine the level of stress and anxiety while patients await this important step in their child’s health care. It’s necessary for diagnosis and potential treatment, and kids can’t wait.

This new Conservative government normal is not okay. While the government ignores its health care responsibilities, the family have even resorted to calling a hospital in Michigan, who got back to them right away with a price tag of $2,200 cash.

Is it acceptable that in a province such as Ontario, cash for health care access is okay?

My question is to the Premier. My constituent Matt’s Christmas holidays were destroyed by one short sentence: “You may have ALS.” Ontario has medication to slow paralysis and extend Matt’s ability to use his hands to eat, and to hug his children, to use his legs to walk outside and dance with his soulmate, Cathy, and his throat to swallow and to say, “I love you.” Albrioza could lengthen Matt’s life by 10 months, but only 7% of ALS patients are eligible. The personal costs are enormous. ALS is the bankruptcy disease.

Can you imagine, Speaker? Right now, Matt’s only option is to put his family in debt to stay alive—because for the other drug, Ontario’s EAP deems him “too far gone” to provide medication.

Will this government do the right thing, fund Albrioza, and extend Matt’s precious time with his family?

I rise today in support of our opposition day motion because it’s clear that Ontario is in the midst of an unmitigated health care crisis. Recently, the member for London West and I had the opportunity to meet with the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario at their event Queen’s Park on the Road. I’d like to share some of the information that we gleaned from that evening, because it’s important that we listen to the front-line workers who are dealing with this crisis day in and day out, and who are not affected by this government’s spin.

We heard stories about a fourth-year nursing student who was paired with a nurse as their mentor who had just two months of experience. Asking nurses who barely know how to be a nurse to perform as an educator—that’s the staffing crisis that we are in.

This government has introduced legislation that has had a dramatic and drastic impact on nursing morale and the amount of people who have decided to leave the profession altogether. In fact, RNAO shares that 69% of nurses, of respondents, are choosing to leave the profession entirely, and 95% want to go into another field somewhere else.

There are stories about people who had been on a wait-list for seven days in home and community care. Another example is of a patient who needed daily wound care and had to wait 28 days to get their care. In fact, they had to turn to an emergency room.

Because there is a lack of a health human resources strategy from this government, it’s no wonder we’re in the crisis that we are in. People who are waiting for home care are left in no position but to go to an ER because they’re simply waiting far too long.

We talked to emergency room nurses who shared that they had upwards of 46 patients by 5 p.m. and they had nowhere to put people. We’re talking that the hallways were full; the closets were full. There were people who were waiting for care and there was simply no place to put them, because ERs, unfortunately, cannot turn people away from the health care they need. When they’re not able to get the home care in their community, they simply turn to an ER.

They also mentioned that the London Health Sciences Centre had recently posted that there was a 20-hour wait for people to be seen in emergency rooms, and, unfortunately, that’s not an accurate portrayal. They shared with us that it was up to 48 to 72 hours before people received the care they needed.

I urge this government to support this motion because we need a health human resources strategy to make sure that we’re responding to the health care needs of Ontarians immediately.

My question is to the Premier.

MPPs across the province have been hearing from constituents about the unmitigated crisis in our hospitals. But are Conservative MPPs truly listening?

My constituent Colleen told me about her mother’s ER experience: “My brilliant, independent, selfless, always-helping-others mom had to hope and pray for someone to walk down that hall to attempt to get help.” Her oxygen machine was empty. When Colleen brought this to the hospital’s attention, the nurses’ overwhelmed exhaustion was clear. It wasn’t their fault.

Will this government keep blaming others and keep neglecting public health care or fund it properly and pay nurses what they’re worth?

Just last week, LHSC in London posted a 20-hour delay for their ER and asked patients to bring a snack and activities. My constituent Tina told me about searching in vain for a nurse or doctor after her partner Rod’s major surgery. No doctors were available and nurses were run off their feet. Tina waited for days until she finally got a phone call.

The RNAO surveyed nurses and found that 69% are planning on leaving the profession in the next five years. When will this government admit they’ve created a crisis and spend money on front-line health care heroes?

Thank you to the member for Barrie–Innisfil for the question. It’s almost like she borrowed words from my speech and was trying to use them against me. It’s rather interesting.

On the official opposition side, we have always advocated to listen to the front lines in health care.

Throughout this throne speech, we don’t see any listening to the front lines of health care—we hear “working with system partners,” and we saw a government that worked with long-term-care owner-operators throughout the pandemic. They created legislation to protect them from legal liability for all the deaths that happened on their watch. That’s frightening.

Instead, we need to listen to the workers. We need to listen to the nurses. We need to listen to the PSWs. We need to listen to the patients who are actually being impacted. That would include having a committee so that we could actually discuss Bill 7 and hear from the people who are going to be impacted, the people who are going to be coerced and forced out of the hospital into a place where they don’t want to go, hundreds of kilometres away, away from their family. That would be listening. That would be your actions matching your words.

Instead, we have all sorts of talk in this throne speech—but it’s coded language; it’s hiding what is actually going on, and that’s increasing privatization. Quite frankly, that is something I believe Ontarians are frightened of.

Why don’t you just be forthright and tell Ontarians what you’re hoping to do—and that is to make health care for-profit in Ontario?

By listening to people, by actually engaging with Ontarians, the official opposition has been able to advocate on some very important pieces of legislation. Those include the member for Windsor West’s More Than a Visitor Act, something that would give essential caregivers more of a role within health care decisions that are being made for folks in long-term care. That was incredibly important, because, throughout the pandemic, we saw that many of these essential caregivers, these loved ones, these people who provided care, who helped buttress a system that has been woefully undercut and underfunded for many, many years—they were the ones who were actually providing that care, and they were shut out from these homes. They were not allowed to see their loved ones, and that’s so difficult on a senior, on someone with disabilities—the only thing that they look forward to every day is seeing that loved one.

Also, we had other legislation—like Till Death Do Us Part Act, to make sure that loved ones are kept in the same home, from the member for Waterloo, and so many other things.

We see a government that doesn’t want to work across party lines and that doesn’t want to work with each other.

Good morning, Speaker. My question is to the Premier. Earlier this month, the London Health Sciences Centre was forced to close their world-leading epilepsy monitoring unit due to critical staffing shortages. The unit being closed and a lack of access to EEGs means even more delayed surgeries. Think of the impacts to health, mental health and the quality of life of patients suffering from seizures.

When will this government admit the crisis in health care is real and address the staffing shortage that they created?

People on waiting lists are waiting even longer and it is because of the disrespectful policies of this government. Epilepsy patients, like Sarah, live in fear wondering when their next episode is going to happen.

Clearly, the Minister of Health wants to peddle privatization as a cure all for the crisis Conservative cuts have created. Overworked and underappreciated by this government, then Bill 124? It’s a perfect storm. Will this government finally admit they got it wrong, repeal Bill 124, and finally treat health care professionals with respect, yes or no?

Back to the Premier: This issue is not unique to Guelph. In London, OPSEU 147 reports that 30% of paramedics are looking to leave the field as soon as possible. They face dangerous understaffing and ever-increasing hospital off-load delays, and they run out of ambulances every day.

Communities across Ontario are worried, terrified, about not having access to emergency medical services. ERs are flooded with patients. So why is this government taking resources away from our public hospitals?