It is an honour to rise on behalf of my constituents of Scarborough–Guildwood. It is with concern that I rise today to acknowledge an issue which has been deepening all across the province. For months now, alarming stories and scenes from hospitals and emergency rooms have caused Ontarians to turn their attention to our health care system. Even just last week, we had mothers with babies on the grounds of Queen’s Park. With increasing urgency, questions are being asked about how it is being funded and staffed.

With winter setting in and hospitals facing a perfect storm of COVID-19, flu and other respiratory illnesses, stories like that of Jasmine—a mother whose four-year-old child with Down syndrome spent close to 40 hours waiting in an ER for a bed, waiting in the hallway, where she lay on two chairs pushed together to form a makeshift bed—show how our health care system is worsening.

In my own community of Scarborough–Guildwood, residents have reported packed hallways, difficulties being seen by a doctor, and a number of cases being turned away at triage, with a few urgent cases being transferred.

This is unacceptable. Responsibility for what is happening lies squarely with the Premier and his government.

Whether it is Jasmine’s family or my residents in Scarborough–Guildwood, these vulnerable Ontarians need the help and support of their government. What their stories tell us is that the government has a duty to do what it should have done at the start of the pandemic: increase supports to meet these unprecedented needs; fast-track provincial supports for hospitals and health networks, like a new hospital for Scarborough–Guildwood; and repeal Bill 124 to address the urgent staffing shortages.

The people of Ontario must not be made to wait any longer, especially if they are four years old and having pneumonia and are sitting in a hallway for 40 hours.

My question is to the Premier.

CTV News reported yesterday that a four-year-old with Down syndrome spent 40 hours in the ER of Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital before she was finally transferred to a bed. The child’s mother, Jasmine, was forced to create a makeshift bed out of chairs for her exhausted and sick daughter, who was suffering with a fever, vomiting and had low oxygen levels.

Our youngest children are sick and suffering because this government didn’t do enough to prepare for this crisis.

I ask the Premier, how many more kids will have to wait long hours for care before this government takes action to relieve the burden on hospitals and ensure our kids get the care that they need?

Why didn’t the Premier tell people during the recent election campaign that he’d be undermining democracy as part of his program?

It is obviously deeply disturbing for all of us to hear stories about parents who have to wait with their children as they get admitted, as they are waiting for that bed to open up in the hospitals, but I also think it’s important for us to understand and appreciate that these are not new issues and not new problems. We were left, frankly, with a health system that was in dire need of investments. Our government has made those investments, and we continue to make those investments.

We are the first government since the last previous Conservative government to open up two new medical schools in the province of Ontario.

We will continue to do what is right and what is needed.

But, yes, I do find it disturbing when we hear stories about how parents have to wait for that bed to become available and the child to ultimately be in a hospital room.

We have put in place with our partners, including Ontario Health, constant contact with pediatric hospitals, Ontario Health, primary care practitioners, community health centres to make sure that everyone is working at full capacity so that we have access to the care we need.

I understand this is very challenging—when we see these surges, when we see increases in viruses such as RSV, when we see increases in influenza. What I would ask, respectfully, is that all of us make sure we are part of the solution by encouraging our constituents to get that flu vaccine. If you haven’t yet received your booster shot for COVID-19, do it. That will make a difference in our hospitals, in our primary care facilities, and it will ultimately protect our children.

As I said, our best defence is to make sure that people get that flu vaccine, that we have sufficient investments in place at pediatric hospitals and, frankly, in community hospitals.

I want to highlight some of the partnerships that have happened. We often talk about the highly skilled, exceptional workers who are in our pediatric hospitals, but we also have highly skilled, caring, compassionate health care workers in our community hospitals. Now we have partnerships where SickKids nurses are training community hospital nurses on what to expect and how to deal with patients with, for example, RSV. It’s working. We will continue to do that work.

Again to the Premier: We also heard yesterday that Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre announced the heartbreaking decision to cancel surgeries for sick children. In-patient bed occupancy is higher than any other time during the pandemic, despite the hospital’s efforts to expand capacity and to move children to the adult ICU. The director of pediatric critical care says the crisis is getting worse every day and they don’t know how long the cancellations will last.

We’ve been hearing that this government has a plan for the crisis in our pediatric hospitals.

How can the Premier possibly defend a plan that causes sick children and their families to suffer?

This government’s so-called plan is devastating for families like my constituents.

Why did the Premier fail to provide the supports and resources needed by Children’s Hospital and other pediatric hospitals to prevent surgeries and procedures from being cancelled?

I respectfully have to disagree. There are some things that we have done and can do quickly. One of those things is through the College of Nurses of Ontario—directing them to, say, when people have applied who are internationally trained, get those assessments done and get them into the system quickly. We’ve seen that historic numbers are already practising in our province.

The member opposite talked about SickKids and a pediatric nurse—absolutely incredible work that SickKids are doing. Do you know what they’re doing right now? Those SickKids nurses are training other community health nurses. SickKids doctors are training and explaining how to deal with RSV so that community hospitals will have that same depth of experience, care and compassion that we see every single day in our hospitals across Ontario.

As I said, I’m not going to presuppose this afternoon’s debate. I look forward to it.

What I hear from the people of Ontario is, “How do we make sure that we have a publicly funded health care system that continues to provide exceptional care to the people of Ontario? How do we make sure that those individuals who, perhaps, do not have to have that operation in a hospital—for example, cataract surgery—can do that seamlessly in their own community?”

We’ll continue to do that work. We’ll continue to find those innovative solutions that will make sure that surgery backlogs, when they occur, are able to ultimately be dealt with in an appropriate manner, using your OHIP card.