Hospital Professionals kicked off their first week of central bargaining with a powerful solidarity rally on Wednesday, May 28th. Joined by fellow OPSEU/SEFPO members and leaders, labour and community allies, they called for real solutions to the recruitment and retention crisis in Ontario hospitals.
Toronto, Cambridge, Thunder Bay and Peterborough, workers came together to send a powerful message to the Ontario Hospitals Association and Ontario Government – Hospital Professionals are ready to fight for meaningful change!
Ontario’s public health care system is in crisis, and the workforce that keeps it running is at a breaking point. Chronic understaffing, burnout and dangerous working conditions threaten not only the stability of the workforce and the quality of care these workers are able to provide, but the very future of public hospitals across Ontario.
For too long, the Ontario government and the OHA have ignored the voices of frontline workers – pouring billions of dollars into private agency staffing instead of investing in health care professionals working at our hospitals. Enough is enough.
Hospital Professionals and health care allies know what the solutions to the crisis in health care are, and they are bringing them to the bargaining table.
This rally was just the beginning – as central bargaining continues, OPSEU/SEFPO Hospital Professionals will keep the pressure on until meaningful change is on the table.
The crisis is here – but so is the movement to solve it.
“You can run a hospital for months without the CEO and you would never notice, but you take away the health professionals and no patient would live.” – Natalie Mehra, Executive Director of the Ontario Health Coalition
“You know how you tariff proof Ontario? You invest in our public services, like our health care workers.” – Laura Walton, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour
“Health Professionals are the unsung heroes of the pandemic, but also the hospitals themselves. You’re there on behalf of patients from diagnosis to discharge; you provide the vital daily services that keep our hospitals running.” – JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO
“You are invaluable to the health care system, and this government and those that are supposed to be at the table with you need to hear loud and strong that you know what it takes to have good health care in our hospitals.” – Laurie Nancekivell, First Vice President/Treasurer of OPSEU/SEFPO
“Hospital CEOs and the Ford government are complicit with the OHA in underfunding our publicly funded and publicly delivered hospitals” – Erin Aris, President of the Ontario Nurses Association
“They need to stop putting money into private clinics that only poach the staff that we need from our hospitals…every single clinic that takes money out of the public purse means we have less money to deal with issues at our hospitals” – Sara Labelle, Executive Chair of OPSEU/SEFPO Hospital Professionals Division
“Anything worth having is worth fighting for, it’s worth fighting for a living wage in this economy, it’s worth fighting for communities to have the services they need, it’s worth fighting for safe work places, but the fight can’t exist without you, without the frontline workers” – Tyler Downey, President of SEIU
“The people upstairs have exploited us forever, and they believe that despite the heroism that people displayed during the pandemic, despite keeping this hospital system together with the fewest staff of any province in the country, that they can continue to exploit us and we are here today to say we stand with you and we have their number” – Michael Hurley, president of CUPE/OCHU
“People of Ontario value our public health care system, and we will stand with you to defend it” – Fred Hahn, President of CUPE Ontario