I move that:

Whereas more than a third of operating rooms in Ontario’s public hospitals do not meet the 90% target for operating room use, mostly due to lack of funding and staff needed to run all the province’s operating rooms simultaneously;

Whereas the government permitted the crisis in our health care system to persist while billions of dollars in unspent public funds are allocated to contingency funds instead of Ontario hospitals that are struggling to maintain quality of care due to understaffing; and

Whereas the Ford government is appealing the Superior Court ruling, declaring Bill 124, Protecting a Sustainable Public Sector for Future Generations Act, 2019, unconstitutional, despite the minister being told about the devastating impact on hiring, recruitment and retention of health care workers;

Whereas the infrastructure to expand surgical capacity already exists and is sitting idle in public hospitals but the government is choosing to spend taxpayer funds on investor-owned, for-profit surgical suites; and

Whereas high-quality facilities across the province have idle operating room time, such as Health Sciences North, which is only funded to use 14 out of 17 state-of-the-art operating rooms and Toronto’s University Health Network, which is unable to simultaneously run all of their operating rooms because of understaffing;

Therefore, the Legislative Assembly calls on the government to fund and fully utilize public operating rooms instead of further privatizing hospital operating room services.

Make no mistake: Today’s health care crisis is a manufactured one. It is a staffing crisis caused by years of underfunding, exacerbated by the pandemic, and made worse by the Ford government’s ideological decision to suppress workers’ wages and then take them to court over it, rather than help Ontarians in pain.

Today’s motion, if passed, would represent a step forward to resolving this government’s health care crisis. By investing the money we already have—funds already earmarked for health care—we could increase capacity in publicly owned operating rooms we’ve already built to reduce wait times. We can get people the relief they need today.

Speaker, over the weekend I listened to the story of Nathan Gilson and his family on CBC Radio. They live in Waterloo. In the fall of 2021, Nathan was just 14 when he was diagnosed with scoliosis in his spine. Left untreated, it can cause a variety of health issues, and at 14 Nathan was already experiencing pain in his ankles and knees. His surgery was scheduled for April. Nathan and his family were ready, but shortly before, they received some bad news: His surgery had to be postponed due to capacity. His mom, Shelley, said it was like having the rug pulled out from under them.

Speaker, I have two children, and there’s no worse feeling in the whole world than watching your child experience pain and not being able to do anything about it, so I can only imagine what it felt like when Nathan’s surgery was delayed a second time, then a third, then a fourth.

The long wait was taking a toll on Nathan. His spine shifted by 10 degrees over just three months. Delay after delay made it feel as though he missed a chunk of growing up. Just hours before his fifth—fifth—surgery date, Nathan was told he’d have to wait longer again. His mom, Shelley, said the most heartbreaking thing was hearing him say, “They don’t care about me, Mom.”

Finally, more than a year after his diagnosis, Nathan had the surgery he needed, and the 14-hour procedure was a success, thankfully.

But Nathan’s story is just one of hundreds we’ve heard from every corner of this province, of people waiting years for surgeries while operating rooms sit with lights off because there aren’t enough staff to run them.

Nathan could have had the procedure he needed much sooner had Ontario’s top-notch public operating rooms been allowed to operate at full capacity. Nathan could have spent more time hanging out with his friends and more time in school and less time in pain.

We need to reduce wait times for people like Nathan, and we need to reduce those wait times now, and we can by funding and fully utilizing public operating rooms instead of further privatizing our system.

When hospitals compete for staff with these new private, for-profit surgical centres that the government is planning, it’s our emergency rooms and urgent care centres that are going to suffer the most. Ontario already has more than 42,000 health care job vacancies—42,000—a fourfold increase in less than a decade.

Let’s be clear: Under the government’s plan, the staffing problem in emergency rooms will worsen. Hospital workers we do have will be incentivized to go to work in the for-profit clinics on the promise of higher wages, shorter hours and better working conditions. It will mean that we may see even more hospitals close their emergency rooms, and even more often, to manage a yet worsening staffing crisis. Communities will have an even harder time accessing services close to home because for-profit centres won’t be as profitable there. And the few health care workers we have in northern Ontario will be even further incentivized to leave.

I’m proud to support today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms because it will reduce wait times right now and retain the health care workers we need in the public system.

Speaker, we know that spending public money on private procedure clinics also winds up being considerably more expensive, both for the government and for individual patients. For-profit clinics cost the public system more because of facility fees that cover overhead, the cost of technicians, the equipment, the supplies and the infrastructure.

Let’s look at cataract surgeries as an example. OHIP pays a flat flee of $500 per patient to public hospitals for these procedures. If it costs less, the remaining money is reinvested back into public patient care. With for-profit clinics, OHIP pays a flat fee of $605 per patient for a single cataract surgery—$1,015 for both eyes. And if the clinic’s actual costs are lower—which is, of course, always their goal—the money lines the shareholders’ pockets. It doesn’t go back into patient care.

This wasted public money adds up. About 150,000 cataract surgeries are performed in Ontario every year. That’s $90 million in public money that could be redirected to for-profit clinics if we’re not careful. That’s going to cost patients more out of pocket, too—and we heard about this earlier today—through the upselling and additional user fees.

In fact, in 2021, Ontario’s Auditor General found private clinics already deliberately misleading patients for unnecessary add-ons. Patients were coerced into buying expensive lenses—as much as $5,000 per eye—to qualify for surgery. This compromises patient choice and quality of care. Patients are often worried that if they don’t pay, they won’t be able to get the appointments, or that they could receive worse or even unsafe care. And let’s not forget, this is at a very vulnerable moment.

Speaker, I want to say again that I am proud to support today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms because it will save the government and patients a great deal of money and will result in better care.

We know the Ford government’s move toward an investor-driven model will also put Ontarians’ safety at risk. Evidence from all over the world shows that profit-driven health care results in poorer outcomes. This makes sense when you consider that a for-profit clinic will always put its shareholders’ interests first.

We are already seeing the impact of this in Ontario. A 2012 report from CPSO noted that nearly a third of all out-of-hospital clinics fell far short of safety standards. That same year, the Toronto Star found nine patients of the for-profit Rothbart Centre for Pain Care who developed serious infections. Further investigations found there were 170 infection-control deficiencies there. They even found 11 patients who contracted hepatitis C at for-profit colonoscopy clinics over three years.

In a private clinic, if a patient experiences a complication, they have to be transported—guess where?—to an emergency room. That costs precious time and puts further strain on the system—while those in a public operating room receive care faster.

Ontarians are demanding that we not go further down the road of privatization of public care.

Today’s motion to prioritize public operating rooms will better ensure patient safety. It will lead to better health outcomes. It will help fix the staffing crisis right now. It will shorten wait times to get Ontarians the care they need faster. It will cost the government less and deliver more. And it will help ensure all Ontarians have better access to safe, quality care from our province’s trusted health care heroes. We already have the money to do it. It has already been earmarked for health care, and the infrastructure is already in place.

I want to urge all my colleagues in the Legislature today to prioritize public operating rooms. Let’s get the lights back on, fill those available shifts, and get patients like Nathan the relief they need now so no one has to wait any longer.

I appreciated listening to the members’ comments.

I have a question for the member for Chatham-Kent–Leamington. He talked about the importance of supporting health care workers, and we’ve heard this for years now from the Conservative government. We heard it when they tabled Bill 124 and we told them it was unconstitutional and that it would be struck down. We heard it when the Superior Court struck it down and in their ruling, which is over 100 pages, they said there’s absolutely no reason to have it. Now we’re hearing it again, even though they’re appealing Bill 124 and attacking health care workers and public sector workers. So I’m wondering—to my colleague—how do you circle that, when you say you support health care workers, knowing the health care workers are outraged and offended by Bill 124?