A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says emergency departments with long wait times and overcrowding signal that the overall healthcare system is struggling to keep up with patient demand for care.
"Emergency departments with long wait times are a canary in the coal mine for the health system performance," said Andrew Longhurst, author of the report and CCPA senior researcher, at a recent news conference in Barrie.
Citing provincial data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the report says Ontario emergency department indicators are moving in the wrong direction.
"The emergency department wait time for patients to receive an initial physician assessment has significantly increased over the last five years," Longhurst explained.
The maximum wait for 90 per cent of patients was 2.7 hours in 2021, and that increased to 4.5 hours in 2024-25, an increase of 67 per cent.
Longhurst says the wait time for ER patients to be admitted into an inpatient bed has also increased over the last five years.
In this region, the hospitals included were Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie, Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital, and Georgian Bay General Hospital in Midland.
"So the title of this study, Failure, By Design, is really drawing attention to the fact that there is a situation of underfunding that is creating these conditions and shrinking the size of the hospital system," Longhurst said.
According to Longhurst, the provincial government has said it will provide up to four per cent in targeted and base funding to the hospital sector.
"We know that falls short of the six per cent annually that is required."
He says the six per cent figure comes from the Ontario Hospital Association, which Longhurst says is telling the provincial government that four per cent is inadequate to address cost pressures, including aging, population growth, utilization, and inflation.
The report lists several recommendations, including that the province provide the hospital sector with an additional $3.2 billion of funding to stabilize hospital finances across Ontario.
"And that's just to maintain service levels from 2025," Longhurst noted. "If we're talking about expanding beds and expanding staffing levels beyond that, it would be above that, but that $3.2 billion is a conservative estimate of what is required to just stabilize hospital finances in the province."
The report calls on the government to move quickly on a provincial health workforce strategy.
"One of the big things we're seeing is the fact that when you have a system that is unable to cope with the demand for care, it creates a lot of moral distress in frontline healthcare workers, and that leads to challenges with retention."
Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says frontline workers are seeing their work devastated by underfunding and cuts, particularly within the public healthcare system.
"Many of our workers who go to work every single day often are being asked to do more and more and more because of the underfunding that these hospitals have. Jobs haven't been replaced. They've been eliminated because the hospitals don't have the funds.
Richer said it's putting pressure on them, but also on the patients that they're trying to care for.
"You can imagine if you're sitting on a stretcher on the emergency department for 15 hours--I don't know if anybody's laid on a stretcher for 15 hours, it's the most uncomfortable thing."
Over the last three years, hospitals in Barrie and Orillia have been in a surplus situation, while Midland has run a deficit, the most recent in 2024-25, was $ 3.6 million, according to Longhurst.
He noted that 55 per cent of Ontario hospitals were in the red in 2024-25, and new data suggests the number will increase to 70 per cent by the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Barrie 360 reached out to RVH last month, before the public release of the report by the CCPA, asking about the budget situation at the hospital.
"The expectation from the government is always for hospitals to balance their budgets each year. This has become increasingly challenging given the mounting financial pressures that come with population growth, more complex patient conditions, and rising supply and labour costs," said Gail Hunt, RVH president and CEO, in an email to Barrie 360 on April 28. "We continue to work within the funding framework set by the province. We are focused on maintaining safe, high-quality care for our patients. As we look at measures to improve efficiency, minimizing any impact on patents and care delivery remains our priority."
Barrie 360 reached out to the office of Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones for comment on the CCP report, but did not receive a response.
