Ontario Invests $35 Million to Add 2,000 New Nurses to Our Health System

OAKVILLE NORTH-BURLINGTON — MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Long-Term Care, announced today that the Ontario government is investing $35 million to increase enrollment in nursing education programs in publicly-assisted colleges and universities across the province. The new spaces will be available starting this fall and will introduce approximately 1,130 new practical nurses and 870 registered nurses into the health care system.

The challenges of COVID-19 have widened the gap between the current supply of nurses and the province’s needs across our health care system. This announcement will help narrow the gap and train nurses for long-term care, hospitals, home care and other facets of Ontario health care.

Quotes from Effie Triantafilopoulos MPP

“This week is National Nurses Week and we know that Ontario has some of the most skilled and compassionate nurses in the world. By funding training for 2,000 additional nurses, the government will increase capacity, improving care for patients and long-term care home residents.

This increase will help meet our government’s promise of 27,000 new nurses, PSWs and other health workers in long-term care over the next four years and ensure we can increase direct care for long-term care residents from 2.75 to four hours per day.”

QUICK FACTS

• The Province launched A Better Place to Live, A Better Place to Work: Ontario’s Long-Term Care Staffing Plan, in December of last year. At the centre of this plan, the hours of direct care for residents will be increasing to an average of four hours per day over four years. To implement this initiative, the government will be making overall investments of $1.9 billion annually by 2024-2025.
• The long-term care staffing plan responds to recommendations from Justice Gillese’s Public Inquiry Report on the Safety and Security of Residents in the Long-Term Care Homes System, the Long-Term Care Staffing Study released this past July, interim recommendations from the Long-Term Care COVID-19 Commission, and submissions and reports from long-term care organizations and other partners.
• Through the 2021 Ontario Budget, the government is investing an additional $650 million in long‑term care in 2021–22, including more than $121 million to accelerate the training of nearly 9,000 personal support workers.

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Media Contact: David Lancaster, Executive Assistant

                              david.lancaster@pc.ola.org