Barrie, ON, June 29, 2026 – The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA), tracking the latest round of cuts to nurses and health-care professionals from Ontario health-care facilities, says that Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre has cut 12 nurse positions, leaving patients with less care.
“It is unacceptable that Ontario, which already has the lowest number of registered nurses (RNs) per capita in Canada, is cutting more to make up for the underfunding of our public health-care system,” says ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN. “Cutting care will make it harder for those in the Barrie community to access care and hurt the safety of patients and workers alike. We should be increasing nurse care through safe staffing ratios, not gutting an already decimated nursing workforce.”
Royal Victoria announced that it is cutting 10 full-time registered nurse positions in dialysis, professional practice, emergency, angiography, and clinical cancer trials, plus two nurse practitioners in geriatrics. Patients and health-care workers will equally feel the consequences.
“The Ford government is intentionally underfunding our public health-care system in its quest to justify more privatization, and employers are balancing the books by cutting nurses,” says Ariss. “This will do nothing to save money, increase access or improve care. Now, patients in Barrie will wait even longer for care, nurses and health-care workers will be expected to care for more patients than is safe, and our system will suffer yet another blow. These cuts must be stopped.”
ONA is tracking the number of RN cuts across Ontario. To see how many and where nurses are being cut, visit: ona.org/cuts. The tracker will be updated as more cuts are announced.
“Underfunding and understaffing in our public health-care system has devastating impacts on everyone,” says Ariss. “I am counting on Ontarians to pay attention to what’s happening, and more importantly, to speak up and demand the Ford government stop funding private care and reinvest in safe staffing ratios,” says Ariss. “We will all need health care. And we will all need nurses to provide it.”
ONA is the union representing 68,000 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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