Ontario’s hospitals are being pushed “beyond the brink” by years of underfunding, understaffing and privatization, according to a new report from the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU/CUPE).
The report, titled Pushed over the brink: the escalating assault on Ontario’s hospitals, found that hospitals’ working capital — the funds used to cover day-to-day costs such as payroll and medical supplies — has fallen from $2 billion in 2020 to negative $280 million by the end of last year. In Chatham, working capital now sits at negative $18 million, the report says, forcing many hospitals to borrow cash to stay afloat.
The report says the Ford government plans to increase hospital funding by 3.3 per cent for 2026-2027, even as costs are rising more than six per cent annually.
“Hospitals need 6 percent annual increases simply to maintain services,” said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU/CUPE, which represents 40,000 hospital workers across the province. “The Ford government has cut hospital budgets in real terms, year after year, resulting in a loss of beds and staff in the face of significant utilization pressures from an aging population.”
The report says hospitalizations have risen sharply over the past decade, adding two million extra inpatient days, while the average length of a hospital stay has grown 15 per cent. Citing Canadian Institute for Health Information data, the report says Ontario hospitals receive the lowest provincial funding in the country, and that Chatham hospitals alone would need $32 million to reduce wait times, add beds and reach the average per-capita spending of other provinces.
The report also says hallway healthcare has roughly doubled since Ford took office, from fewer than 1,000 average daily hallway patients in 2018 to nearly 2,000 in 2024. Bed occupancy rates are regularly above the recommended 80 per cent safety threshold provincewide, the report says, with Chatham at 96 per cent.
According to the report, hospital operating deficits topped $400 million in 2025, with Chatham’s deficit at $18 million. More than 1,300 hospital jobs were cut across the province in the past year, the report says, even though Chatham alone needed 332 more full-time staff to match the capacity of hospitals in other provinces.
“Funding cuts are driving the staffing crisis facing Ontario hospitals,” Hurley said. “We’ve seen emergency rooms across the province regularly forced to close, and wait times everywhere are continuing to rise. Patients are suffering. It’s unacceptable.”
The report also takes aim at the province’s growing reliance on private clinics, pointing to cataract surgery wait times, which it says rose 12 per cent after private clinics were introduced.
“Privatization is not the solution. The research is clear, when we privatize services not only does the level of care suffer, but we’re paying much more for longer wait-times, further delays to treatment and reduced access for everyone but the most wealthy,” Hurley said.
CUPE is calling on the province to commit $5 billion in new hospital funding, along with multi-year funding agreements, a halt to privatization and legislated nurse-to-patient ratios.
