TORONTO – Doctors didn’t like Prime Minister Ford’s approach to the healthcare. A sector in full crisis with the emergency rooms of numerous Ontario hospitals forced to temporarily close on weekends due to staff shortages.

Michael Garron Hospital intensive care doctor Michael Warner doesn’t hide his big disappointment: acknowledging the existence of a problem is the first step, he says, but not having a plan to help health care providers is really worrying. “The system is under more stress than it has ever been before – said Dr. Michael Warner – I believe that if some wave of Covid-19 arrives this autumn the system will be brought to its knees”.

The Throne speech of Ford, delivered by Deputy Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell, acknowledged that more can be done to alleviate the pressure on the health system, but did not offer new solutions to the problem. “Your government is actively engaging with health system partners to identify urgent and workable solutions and will put into practice all necessary measures to alleviate immediate pressures, while also making sure that the province is ready to remain open during any winter wave,” Dowdeswell said in the speech.

But according to Warner there is a ‘disconnect’ between the Ford government and health workers, which only increases the growing “moral distress” and burnout in the profession.

That nurses are not working with serenity and that they are instead subjected to a very high level of stress is also what Dr. Chris Simpson, vice president of the medical sector within Ontario Health and cardiologist at Kingston Health Sciences Centre, also notes. “Working closely with nurses I have seen that they have had to take on many hours of overtime in an unpleasant environment but I have also noticed that they always do their job professionally despite often being demoralized – said Simpson – nurses are, and continue to be, the backbone of the system”.

Simpson also disagrees with Health Minister Sylvia Jones, who considers a lack of staff a normal thing when many nurses take vacation. “I would call this situation unprecedented, generally staffing issues affect remote communities in northern Ontario but now dealing with the shortage of health workers are medium and large community hospitals, even academic hospitals.”

And Nour Khatib, a doctor in an emergency room in the GTA, believes that perhaps we need to “see to believe”. His is the invitation posted on social media to Prime Minister Ford and Minister Jones to take a tour of the emergency room where he works in order to see firsthand the shortage of staff and the crisis in which the health system of the province finds itself. “I am a professional and respectful person, I just want you to see with your own eyes what we see every day,” Khatib wrote.