PCs voted down the NDP motion for a new hospital in Brampton in a 35 to 65 vote.
Premier Ford and the two Progressive Conservative MPPs from Brampton were not present at the vote.
Brampton NDP MPPs Sarah Singh (Brampton Centre), Kevin Yarde (Brampton North) and Gurratan Singh (Brampton East) on Tuesday announced their intention to push for funds to build a new hospital in Brampton.
The NDP plans to move a motion at Queen’s Park that would commit funding to construction of a new hospital in Brampton, as well as funds to expand Peel Memorial into a full hospital in the spring budget.
“Brampton families deserve so much better than the hallway medicine, crowded emergency rooms and painfully long waits they’ve been suffering through,” said Horwath. “There’s a better way forward. It starts with the immediate Phase 2 funding to expand Peel Memorial Centre, then building a new hospital for the growing Brampton community.
Brampton’s healthcare challenges have been a big topic of conversation since last fall when the NDP revealed a report that showed 4,352 patients were treated in the hallways of Brampton Civic between April 2016 and April 2017.
Not long after the Wynne government announced 37 new beds to attempt to keep up with Brampton’s rapidly growing needs, but it wasn’t enough.
In the 2017/2018 budget Peel Memorial Urgent Care Centre only received funding for 6,250 visits despite seeing over 61,950 patients – leading to over 55,000 unfunded visits. This year, the centre expects the number of unfunded patient visits to hit 67,750.
Meanwhile, Brampton Civic Hospital was in Code Gridlock 114 days last year, where more patients were left waiting for admission than there were open beds available.
The bill will need support from Ford’s conservative government to pass, but if it is successful Brampton could finally have the funding to meet its ever-growing healthcare needs.
