From the office of MPP Bobbi Ann Brady
To The Haldimand Press
HALDIMAND—When will Ontario’s Minister of Health put all qualified healthcare workers back on the frontlines? That was the question Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Bobbi Ann Brady asked in the Ontario Legislature last week.
During Question Period, MPP Brady informed her colleagues that Norfolk General Hospital, this past Sunday, temporarily reduced services in the emergency department.
“This is a staffing issue and we are just beginning cold and flu season,” Brady said. “The buck stops with the minister, with this government.”
Over the past 36 hours, Brady said she has been contacted by many constituents who are extremely worried their local hospital will implement further reductions in the weeks and months ahead.
Brady then asked, “Will the minister stand up today and tell every qualified healthcare worker she will do everything possible to get them all back to work in Haldimand-Norfolk and in all hospitals across Ontario to avoid further reductions and shutdowns?”
In her line of questioning, Brady encouraged the government to both scrap Bill 124 (a bill she asserts continues to gut our system of nurses) and to clean up surgical backlog by setting up standalone centres. She also informed the Minister that many retired nurses have told her that returning to a two-year college nursing program would get more people on the frontlines faster.
Health Minister Sylvia Jones agreed that the file was ignored for far too long by the previous Liberal government, but that the Ford government is doing everything to ensure that healthcare is protected.
