Defend Public Healthcare

The massive cut in the number of hospital beds in Ontario in the 1990s is, by now, well known. Community and labour movement campaigns over the last fifteen years stopped the decline in the  number of beds, but the push for cuts is relentless.  Hospital beds per capita have continued to decline right up until the most recent data reported. Moreover, Ontario remains a low capacity outlier -- with far fewer beds per capita than other provinces.   This chart excludes Neonatal ICU beds and bassinets.  CIHI does not report data, in this case, for Quebec. This Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) chart (above) shows a 6.9% decline in hospital beds per capita from 2009/10 to 2018/19 .   Ontario had fewer beds than any other province reported per capita.  The next lowest (Alberta) had 12.2% more beds in 2018-19 . There was even a decline in the absolute number of Ontario ICU, Obstetric, Pediatric, and Complex Continuing Care ("LTC") beds, with the latter category seeing