Employees at Sudbury's Health Sciences North rally demanding more funding

A small group of health care workers braved the heavy rain on Tuesday to take part in a rally demanding the province provide more funding for hospitals in Ontario.

The rally, held in front of Health Sciences North in Sudbury, was organized by the unions which represent the workers.

In the last fiscal year, Health Sciences North was facing a deficit of $11.1 million. The approved budget for this year allows the hospital to have a deficit of up to $4.9 million.

Currently, the hospital is in the process of cutting 51 full time jobs.

Since coming into power this year, the Ford government has promised to "put an end to hallway health care," and announced $90 million in funding for hospitals across Ontario, including $860,000 for the hospital in Sudbury.

But health care workers say it's not enough. Marc Mallioux has been working in maintenance in the hospital for 37 years.

"We can't keep up. It's a lot of work," he said.

"We're lacking staff and with the cuts, we're saying it's affecting patient care."

The president of CUPE 1623, Dave Shelefontiuk, says the province needs to step up.

"I think the people of Sudbury, the people of Ontario deserve … quality health care and right now, we're stretched to the limit," he said.

"I don't know how much longer we can continue to provide the same quality of services that we've been providing."

'Moving quickly' to address concerns

Dominic Giroux, president and CEO of Health Sciences North says the hospital shares the concerns raised by staff.

He's says the hospital is "actively working on short-term plans" to repurpose space for new beds, if the province were to provide the funding.

"That would alleviate some of the pressures that front line staff is feeling on a day to day basis at HSN," he said.

In a statement to CBC Sudbury, Hayley Chazan, the press secretary to the province's minister of health and long-term care says the government is committed to end hallway medicine.

She pointed out last month, the province announced $90 million in funding for hospitals across the province for more beds and also said money is being invested for more long-term care beds across Ontario.

"Taken together, these actions will ease hospital gridlock, help doctors and nurses work more efficiently, and provide better, faster health care for patients and their families," she said.

"Our government is moving quickly to address the immediate challenges faced by Ontario's healthcare system as we continue to develop a long-term transformational health system capacity plan."