Ontario’s health care system is in crisis.
Across the province, frontline health care and social services workers are facing severe staffing shortages, rising workloads, burnout, and growing privatization. Patients and families are seeing the consequences every day through longer wait times, closed emergency rooms, reduced services, and worsening access to care.
Unifor calls on provincial government to address the staffing crisis, stop the expansion of privatized care, improve retention and recruitment, and protect the future of public health care in Ontario.
Health care and social service workers demand:
- Fix the staffing crisis by investing in recruitment and retention, improving wages and working conditions, implementing safe staffing standards, and supporting frontline workers across hospitals, long-term care, home care, retirement homes, and emergency services.
- Stop privatization and strengthen public health care by ending the expansion of private clinics and staffing agencies, increasing public hospital funding, and ensuring long-term care and senior care services are publicly accountable and not-for-profit.
- Protect and support PSWs by reforming the PSW registry, preventing future fees and unfair disciplinary processes, and ensuring experienced workers are not pushed out of the profession during the staffing crisis.
What’s at stake
Staffing shortages are hurting workers and patients
Staffing shortages are hurting workers and patients
Hospitals, long-term care homes, retirement homes, home care agencies, and emergency services are struggling to recruit and retain workers.
Health care workers are stretched thin as patient needs continue to grow. Without meaningful investment in staffing, retention, and safe workloads, Ontario risks losing even more experienced frontline workers from the system.
Unifor is calling for:
- Increased investment in recruitment and retention across all health sectors
- Wage parity and fair compensation across health care settings
- Safe staffing standards to improve care and reduce burnout
- Stronger supports for Northern and hard-to-staff communities
- Increased support for paramedic recruitment, retention, and mental health services
Privatization is making the crisis worse
The Ford government continues to expand private, for-profit delivery of surgeries, diagnostics, and long-term care services.
Moving publicly funded services into private clinics threatens the stability of the public system, drains workers from hospitals, and diverts public dollars into corporate profits instead of frontline care.
Private staffing agencies are also worsening shortages by pulling workers out of the public system while charging excessive fees funded by taxpayers.
Unifor is calling on the government to:
- Stop the expansion of private, for-profit clinics
- Reinvest privatized services back into public hospitals
- End reliance on costly private staffing agencies
- Ensure new long-term care development is public and not-for-profit
Strengthen oversight and regulation of retirement homes
PSWs deserve support — not more barriers
Unifor has serious concerns about Ontario’s new Personal Support Worker registry through the Health and Supportive Care Providers Oversight Authority (HSCPOA).
Frontline workers have raised concerns about potential future fees, lack of PSW representation in disciplinary processes, and registration requirements that could push experienced workers out of the profession during a staffing crisis.
At a time when Ontario desperately needs more PSWs, workers should not face additional barriers that threaten retention and stability in the sector.
Unifor is calling for:
- No mandatory registration as a condition of employment
- No fees for PSWs now or in the future
- Fair representation for PSWs in oversight processes
- Protection for experienced “grand-parented” PSWs to remain in the workforce
Ontario Health Coalition Rally at Queen’s Park
On May 28, Unifor members will join the Ontario Health Coalition and allies from across the province for a major rally at Queen’s Park demanding urgent investments in public health care.
Health care workers, patients, advocates, and community members will come together to send a clear message to the provincial government: public health care cannot wait.
