First of all, I’d like to thank the Patient Ombudsman. Since the Office of the Patient Ombudsman has been in existence, they’ve been a valuable tool to assess where we need to make improvements.

There is no doubt that the investments that we have made in terms of the Learn and Stay program at colleges and universities to allow nurses, lab technicians and paramedics in northern Ontario to be able to have their tuition and books covered are making a difference in terms of ensuring that we have sufficient health human resources.

I have to point out a very successful partnership that we have with the College of Nurses of Ontario, where in the summer we directed them to ensure that individuals who are internationally educated had their applications assessed and ultimately approved and licensed in the province of Ontario. Historic—7,000 new nurses in the province of Ontario are practising today that wouldn’t have been there without that work.

But we are not stopping there because this is not an either-or, this is an and. We can also expand our community surgical, and we’ve done that in Windsor, in Kitchener–Waterloo and in Ottawa through the expansion of existing infrastructure in community care that is now allowing more people access to cataract surgery. We’re getting the work done.

You know, when I heard about that story—devastating news for the family and the friends of that individual. But I want to be clear: That was not as a result of hospital capacity issues. That was a result of someone who was going to a hospital that needed a much higher level of care.

Now, if we look at the investments that our government is making: over 50 new capital projects in our hospital systems; new hospitals in Brampton; new hospitals in Windsor, in Ottawa, in Niagara—we are investing to ensure that hospitals have the expansion plans. We have done that through, again, 50 different capital builds that are now approved in the province of Ontario.

For that individual and that family—absolutely devastating, without a doubt, but the care that was needed and necessary for that individual was in another hospital and they were being taken there, of course, by Ornge, when, unfortunately, he succumbed to his injuries.