Nurses and Health-Care Professionals Erect Hospital Understaffing Graveyard, Call for Registered Nurse-to-Patient Staffing Ratios

Toronto, ON, November 14, 2024 – Members of the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) staged a hospital understaffing graveyard today outside the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA). Members held a funeral to call attention to the loss of nurse and health-care professional positions and hours and to put pressure on hospital CEOs to reverse their deliberate and detrimental decreases in staffing levels.

They are calling on hospital CEOs to implement registered nurse (RN)-to-patient staffing ratios so that public hospitals can recruit and retain nurses and health-care professionals to provide the care patients need.

“The understaffing crisis is intentional. Hospital CEOs and the Ford Conservatives are working together to funnel our public money to private clinics that benefit their interests, while public care suffers,” says Erin Ariss, Registered Nurse and Provincial President of ONA. “Without RN staffing ratios, public hospitals will continue to lose staff to the private sector, making this crisis worse and timely care near impossible.”

Hospital CEOs have caused service cuts, bed closures and the worst nurse-to-patient ratio in the country by understaffing our public hospitals. Nurses and health-care professionals report that providing patients with basic care is becoming more and more challenging due to understaffing. Instead of properly staffing public hospitals, Ford’s Conservatives are expanding private clinics which will continue to draw staff away and worsen the understaffing crisis.

“We remember a time when public hospital staffing was better, when nurses and health-care professionals had time to provide the care patients need and deserve,” explains Ariss. “We know a different future is possible for public hospital care and that starts with staffing ratios. Safe staffing saves lives.”

ONA is the union representing 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing students, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

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To arrange an interview, contact:

ONA Media Relations, media@ona.org