Smitherman: Cut staff and beds

Everyone knows that Canada faces a medical crisis. We are besieged daily with expert articles telling us about shortages of doctors, nurses and other skilled medical personnel and the ill waiting months for surgery because there are not enough hospital beds to accommodate them post-surgery. Given this context, I was surprised to pick up the newspaper today and read that Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman is saying that the Ontario government is not about to bail out hospitals that are laying off nurses and closing beds. He suggested that the cuts may be a necessary evil to help the hospitals balance their budgets.

Has the Ontario government lost its marbles? I agree that budgets must be balanced but not on the backs of nurses and hospital beds.

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