One Eastern Ontario ER closed overnights this weekend as Premier says 'everything on the table' to fix system
Emergency departments across the province have either shut down or reduced hours this summer because of a severe shortage of nurses.
The impact felt in rural areas like Alexandria, Ont., where Glengarry Memorial Hospital temporarily closes its emergency department overnights on weekends until Aug. 22.
"When we look at the weekend staffing, most of the challenges we were seeing were in the emergency and inability to staff overnight hours with any nurses," said Glengarry Memorial Hospital President Robert Alldred-Hughes.
The Montfort Hospital closed its emergency department overnights last weekend due to a staffing shortage, but plans to be open 24-hours a day this weekend.
"The fact the Montfort closed that should be a wake up call. That’s a city hospital with a busy ER," said Rachel Muir a registered nurse at Ottawa Hospital and the local bargaining unit president for Ontario Nurses’ Association. "They are not listening to us. If they were they would have started by showing us respect and recognizing the value of what health care workers have in the system."
Like several advocates, Muir wants the province to repeal Bill 124, a bill that provides nurses with just a one-per-cent wage increase.
This comes after Ontario Premier Doug Ford said, "Everything is on the table" when reporters pressed him to declare where he stood on privatizing health care.
"Every single doc, every single nurse, every CEO I talk to says two things: it’s not a money issue, we have to do things differently," Ford said Friday.
The premier said no matter what the solutions, he won’t do anything without consulting health experts.
"There's one thing we'll guarantee: you'll always be covered by OHIP, not the credit card," Ford said. "Are we going to get creative? Absolutely."
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Bodies found by U.S. authorities searching for missing B.C. kayakers
United States authorities who have been searching for a pair of missing kayakers from British Columbia since the weekend have recovered two bodies in the nearby San Juan Islands of Washington state.
Amid concerns over 'collateral damage' Trudeau, Freeland defend capital gains tax change
Facing pushback from physicians and businesspeople over the coming increase to the capital gains inclusion rate, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy Chrystia Freeland are standing by their plan to target Canada's highest earners.
'It's discriminatory': Individuals refused entry to Ontario legislature for wearing keffiyeh
Individuals being barred from entering Ontario’s legislature while wearing a keffiyeh say the garment is part of their cultural identity— and the only ones making it political are the politicians banning it.
BREAKING Mounties will not be charged in shooting death of B.C. Indigenous man
Three Mounties in British Columbia will not face charges in the killing of a 38-year-old Indigenous man on Vancouver Island in 2021.
Canada's favourite sport to watch is hockey, survey shows
The 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs have already delivered a fever level of fan excitement in Canada.
Douglas DC-4 plane with 2 people on board crashes into river outside Fairbanks, Alaska
A Douglas C-54 Skymaster airplane crashed into the Tanana River near Fairbanks on Tuesday, Alaska State Troopers said.
Tom Mulcair: Park littered with trash after 'pilot project' is perfect symbol of Trudeau governance
Former NDP leader Tom Mulcair says that what's happening now in a trash-littered federal park in Quebec is a perfect metaphor for how the Trudeau government runs things.
'It's just so hard to let it go': Umar Zameer still haunted by death of Toronto police officer
“It's just so hard to let it go. I mean, everyone is telling me, ‘you have to move on,’ but I know someone is not here [anymore]. So I don't know how I will move on." That’s what Umar Zameer, the man recently acquitted in the death of a Toronto police officer, told CTV News Toronto in a sit-down interview on Tuesday.
NASA hears from Voyager 1, the most distant spacecraft from Earth, after months of quiet
NASA has finally heard back from Voyager 1 again in a way that makes sense. The most distant spacecraft from Earth hadn't sent home any understandable data since last November.