My question is for the Premier.

Just two days ago, I received a letter from a nurse in my riding. He shared a story about one of his patients: “My patient has fluid filling up his lungs, and he is less able to” breathe. His oxygen is not coming “into his body with each passing day.

“It is not exaggerating to say that he is drowning slowly. He needs an urgent procedure to remove the fluid.”

This should have happened last week: “This was scheduled for last week—it has yet to happen” because of the staffing shortage.

My question: What will the government do to help this suffering patient in the next 24 hours, and what will they do in the next 10 days to alleviate this staffing crisis that we see in our hospitals?

My question is to the Minister of Health.

Critically sick patients had to be transferred out of Bowmanville Hospital when Lakeridge Health had to make the unimaginable decision to close the intensive care unit there because of a staffing shortage.

Shelly, an ICU nurse who worked at Bowmanville, stood on the lawn of Queen’s Park and bravely told us what it was like to watch fellow co-workers make the difficult decision to leave the bedside in a health care system where nurses cannot take it any longer.

Bill 124 has unfairly suppressed wages, and exhausted nurses feel devalued, underappreciated and disrespected—and this after two years of COVID. We need the Bowmanville ICU to reopen.

How will this Premier ensure nurses can stay and ICUs can stay open?

I’ve said many times, it is concerning, deeply disturbing when an emergency room department or another department in a hospital must transfer patients. The Bowmanville four-bed ICU was, of course, one such example. We don’t want that to happen, which is why we have been investing in our health care system, including $3.3 billion, bringing the total annual investment in hospitals to over $8.8 billion in the province of Ontario.

Specifically related to acute and post-acute, we’ve made a historic investment of $1.5 billion to support the continuation of 3,500 acute and post-acute beds opening during the pandemic. Those beds will continue because we understand our population is growing. That’s why we are making these investments in new hospitals in Ottawa, in Brampton, in Niagara. We’re doing these investments because we understand the people of Ontario deserve no less.