Hiding from Ontario’s nursing shortage won’t save Doug Ford
Restoring Ontario’s beleaguered healthcare system to adequacy is a gargantuan challenge, but the first step is being honest about the size of the problem. That’s something the Doug Ford government has consistently failed to do.
It’s not exactly a secret that Ontario is short of every type of health worker, but the government has been reluctant to say how many more nurses, doctors and personal support workers the province needs now and in the future. So determined is this government to keep those facts from the public that it denied a Global News request for its projections on nurses and personal support workers (PSWS), arguing that the figures would damage the government’s interests when it came to healthcare sector contract negotiations.
It was a ridiculous argument given the wide awareness of shortages, but it had a comic ending this week when the provincial government’s information office that denied the numbers to Global released them in response to a separate request by The Canadian Press.
The real story is not the freedom-of-information snafu, it’s the Ford government’s failure to establish health-care hiring targets, offer a rational plan to meet those targets, and report on progress toward its goals.
Instead, the government prefers to tell a cheery tale about all the nurses it has hired, the medical schools it is opening and the hospital and long-term care beds it is building. All those things are commendable, but the progress needs to be put in context.
For instance, the government frequently says that since 2018, 60,000 nurses have registered to work in the province. Great, but are we gaining ground on the nursing shortage? The numbers the government wanted to keep secret show that things will get worse, not better.
In 2022, Ontario required 6,000 more nurses, the government document says. By 2032, that number is expected to increase to 33,200 nurses. The PSW shortage is even more dramatic. In 2022, Ontario needed 24,100 more of these workers. By 2032, the number is projected to be 50,853.
Last year, the province’s Financial Accountability Office did a study of future health-care worker demand and found similarly discouraging numbers.
“Relative to projected growth in demand, by 2027– 28, Ontario will have less hospital capacity, similar home-care capacity and less long-term care capacity compared to what it had in 2019– 20,” the report said.
While the Ford government prefers to talk about the new health workers it is adding, that’s only part of the picture. For example, the College of Nurses of Ontario, the profession’s governing body, reported that 15,000 new nurses registered in 2023, but 9,000 did not renew their licences.
The information released in the access request didn’t talk about the doctor shortage. The situation there isn’t any better. The Ontario College of Family Physicians says there are 2.3-million Ontarians without a family doctor and that number could nearly double by 2026. The province’s announced medical school expansions won’t solve the problem.
Part of the challenge for the government is that the health-care workforce requirement is a moving target. With rapid population growth and an aging population, the government must not only eliminate the current shortage, but meet expanding demand.
Directionally, many of the things the Ford government is doing are correct, but funding hospital beds and building new long-term care homes won’t produce a result unless there are people to staff them. It’s an obvious point, but one the government skates around.
Instead of ducking and dodging, the Ford government needs to lay out a real plan, the type with numbers. First, dramatically increase the capacity for all types of health-care training so that the province can meet its own needs. Second, maximize the capacity of the existing workforce.
For family doctors, that means government-funded assistants who can carry the paperwork burden. Instead of that meaningful step, last month the government offered a plan to reduce the number of sick notes doctors write. As well, it will work to “streamline” 12 cumbersome government forms. That’s not all. It will eliminate the use of fax machines in doctors’ offices “over the next few years.” Twenty-first century, here we come.
Politically, it’s understandable that the Ford government doesn’t want to highlight the depressing magnitude of the health-worker shortage, but it’s certainly no secret. Organizations that represent workers are constantly putting out numbers, and the story is never positive. The government needs to regain control of the narrative.
The best way to do that is a plan with real numbers and consequential actions, one that will offer hope not only to patients, but to doctors, nurses and personal support workers who are often asked to do too much with too little help.
THE NUMBERS THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO KEEP SECRET SHOW THAT THINGS WILL GET WORSE, NOT BETTER.