BRANTFORD, ON, May 19, 2026 – Hundreds of Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) members are voicing concerns about 22 registered nurse (RN) position cuts at Brant Community Healthcare System (BCHS). This comes on the heels of province-wide nurse and health-care professional cuts due to government underfunding and employer understaffing. Multiple departments will be impacted, including: the critical care unit, emergency department, medical cardiology, in-patient surgical, emergency department mental health and mental health in-patient and out-patient medication clinic, ambulatory care and the Willett urgent care centre.
“We are seeing cuts to nurse positions across the province because of chronic government underfunding and employers who choose to balance the books by cutting front-line patient care,” says ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN. “Hospital CEOs and the Ford government either don’t understand or refuse to acknowledge that patients need the right level of care at the right time. You wouldn’t want anyone but a pilot landing your airplane, so why would you want anyone but an RN providing care for critical, unstable or complex patients?”
BCHS, which operates Brantford General Hospital and Willett Hospital, serves more than 255,000 residents in Brantford, Brant County, Six Nations of the Grand River, Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and Haldimand Norfolk. As a regional acute hospital, they play an important role in ensuring residents get high-quality, timely hospital care close to home. They also support the education of future doctors, nurses and health-care professionals who end up working in the community after graduation.
Ariss explains, “These RN cuts will be detrimental to the community. Residents want and need timely hospital care that is close to home. Fewer RNs means more complex, unstable patients won’t have the necessary and safe levels of care they need.”
RNs are essential to acute care hospitals where patients’ conditions can drastically and instantly change. RNs bring advanced levels of education, skill and are trained to exercise clinical judgement in life-or-death situations. Cutting or replacing RN positions means heightened safety risks for patients and workers, both RNs and other team members who have distinct and important roles.
“Each nurse and health-care professional plays an important, distinct role on a health-care team. What’s important is ensuring appropriate levels of care and skill – especially for unstable or unpredictable patients - so everyone can do their job and provide safe patient care,” adds Ariss. “Patients and workers should never have to risk their health or their lives so hospital CEOs can save money.”
ONA is the union representing 68,000 health-care professionals, along with 18,000 nursing student affiliates, who provide care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, community settings, clinics, and industry.
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