TORONTO, ON, February 10, 2025 – At a media conference in Toronto today, the Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) demanded that nurse staffing ratios be front and centre in both a new contract for hospital nurses and for Ontario’s next provincial government. Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Ontario Federation of Labour President Laura Walton joined ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN and front-line nurses at the media conference to show their support.
“Nurses are demanding better patient care at the bargaining table and the ballot box,” says Ariss. “We need nursing ratios in our next hospital contract, and we need a government that will fund and legislate ratios across Ontario’s public health-care system, so patients get the care they need.”
In 2024, emergency departments across Ontario closed for a combined total of nearly 15,000 hours, most of it caused by understaffing. High levels of nurse staffing achieved through ratios are shown to improve retention and recruitment and decrease patient complication rates and deaths.
“The crisis in our health-care system is the direct result of intentional underfunding by the Ford Conservatives and understaffing by hospital CEOs who are more interested in expanding private, for-profit clinics than improving our public hospitals,” says Ariss.
Nurses and health-care professionals are delivering Valentine’s cards to their hospital CEOs in communities across Ontario today, demanding they ‘have a heart’ and implement registered nurse (RN)-to-patient staffing ratios in the next collective agreement for 60,000 ONA hospital members.
“The Ford Conservatives had a chance to vote for the Ontario NDP’s nursing ratios bill last year, but they shot it down. We’re proud to be here today with front-line nurses and supporters to demand nursing ratios now, so Ontarians get the hospital care they need.”
ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.
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