NDP Health Critic calls Premier's claims of billions in health care investment 'partial truths'

Ontario's NDP Health Critic says Premier Doug Ford wasn't telling the whole truth when speaking about the investments his government has made in health care.

At a news conference in southern Ontario on Tuesday, Doug Ford said the Conservatives have invested billions into the province's health care system, pointing to a new long term care home behind him in Ajax.

"We've created 3,100 new beds. We hired 6,700 new health care workers and another 6,000 on the way. We're building long term care facilities, rapid builds like this, right across the province," Ford said.

Nickel Belt NDP MPP France Gélinas calls this a 'partial truth'.

She said the Conservatives made many cuts to health care shortly after they were elected, and then had to put the money back once the pandemic hit.

"You will remember that on January 1st, 2020, just before the pandemic started, they cut 100 million dollars from public health. They turned our public health system on its head weeks before we needed them the most."

3,100 beds added

Gélinas said the new 3,100 hospital beds Ford spoke about are actually temporary, transitional beds set up in anticipation of hospital surge during COVID, like the beds at the Clarion Hotel in Sudbury.

"Those are considered hospital beds. Those are beds that belong to Health Sciences North," she said. 

"But we all know that those are temporary and transitional beds. There is no way the Clarion Hotel will become a hospital."

"What is going on in Sudbury has happened in almost all other large community hospitals."

New long-term care homes

Gélinas also said the Conservative's funding for long term care is more a promise of funding, since builders have to pay costs upfront before being reimbursed.

"They have committed to funding," she said.

"But is there a whole lot of money that has flown? No. Because most of those new beds have either just been approved, have not started building or have faced a whole ton of delays because of the pandemic and other construction delays."

"[The Conservatives] have made promises of investment but they haven't spent the dollars."

One of these new long term care facilities under construction is in south end Sudbury. Extendicare Falconbridge plans to move its residents to the new building, and then renovate its Extendicare York building.

Alongside Ford, Health Minister Christine Elliott said Tuesday it does appear that the peak of Omicron has passed. And while the number of patients in hospitals and ICU's is still high, they're starting to decline.

Elliot said there is capacity in the hospitals across the province.

"We feel that we are ready for whatever will happen as we move forward."