My question is to the Minister of Health.

Chris Hodgins lives in London West and had to take his 84-year-old mother to University Hospital ER for severe hip pain. She waited 16½ hours before being seen and then waited two hours more in the treatment room. Another patient with acute appendicitis waited five hours longer than Chris’s mother.

Speaker, how many hours will Londoners have to wait before this government finally acknowledges that our health care system is in crisis? Or does the entire ER have to shut down?

Like many Londoners, a constituent told me that she and her husband have been unable to find a new family doctor. After being turned away from overwhelmed walk-in clinics, they felt they had no other option than to pay to join a private medical service in order to access basic medical care. They have the means to pay but feel that this is fundamentally wrong.

Why is this government more interested in promoting privatized two-tier health care than in making the urgent investments that our public health care system and our exhausted health care workers so desperately need?

Our government has a proud record of investments in health care, especially supporting our front-line health care heroes.

Since March 2020, we have added over 10,500 health care workers to the system. This also includes investing in the first new medical school in over 100 years in the GTA to ensure that we have—in Brampton, in the Durham region and in Scarborough—doctors and health care professionals into the future.

The members opposite have voted against each and every single one of those measures to support health care workers and increase health human resources in this province.

We will continue to do what we can and ensure that we support our health care heroes across this province.