They're doing a lot, but they have a lot to do.” “If the government was doing nothing, we'd have a huge problem right now, but they aren't doing nothing. “It's not like they're doing nothing,” he said of the Ford government. However, Financial accountability officer Peter Weltman noted that the Doug Ford government has been working to solve the health-care pressures it inherited from the previous Liberal government, which invested in home capacity but added little to hospital and long-term care capcity as the population of high-needs seniors grew.

“Given that the province’s capacity expansion commitments in hospitals, home care and long-term care will not meet growth in demand for these services from Ontario’s growing and aging population, the province has not allocated sufficient funding to the health sector to support its programs and commitments, and the province has not taken sufficient measures to supply the nurses and PSWs needed to deliver on its expansion commitments, challenges are expected to persist across Ontario’s health care system.” - Ontario Health Sector: Spending Plan Review The Financial Accountability Office (FAO) found the government’s plans fall short in three key ways: it isn’t building sufficient capacity in the hospital, long-term-care and home-care systems its budgeted funding falls short and it will not have enough health-care workers to meet the commitments to expansion it has made.

The Ontario government is not ready to meet the health-care demands of the growing and aging population over the next few years, according to a hard-hitting report from the province’s fiscal watchdog. EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a new Village Media website devoted exclusively to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park

Government watchdog article