The Ontario Minister of Health Is Coming to Brampton for a Visit to the Hospital

With the City of Brampton’s population expected to continue its rapid growth, there is speculation that it will put added pressure on the city’s frontline health care workers and hospital infrastructure.

Brampton City Council has asked the provincial government many times to provide the same per capita funding to Brampton as the rest of the province. Mayor Patrick Brown says Brampton has been getting 1,000 dollars less per resident and has only half the hospital beds per capita compared to the rest of the province.

The request issued to the provincial government is to have a third hospital location in Brampton as well as an immediate announcement of Phase 2 for Peel Memorial Hospital. Mayor Brown says there are areas of the hospital that aren’t at full utilization and that they could put hospital beds in to help alleviate the overwhelmed Brampton hospital system. The mayor also says the city needs to have proper funding to hire more nurses and physicians at existing health care facilities.

Mayor Patrick Brown plans to have a meeting with Health Minister Christine Elliot to discuss the issue by the end of the year.

“The Health Minister has responded to my petition and has agreed to do a tour of Brampton Civic before the end of the year,” says Brown. “I am going to be going with Christine Elliot showing her our Emergency Department, showing her some of the areas where there is real gridlock… I think she’ll be sympathetic to the crisis we are facing and it is why I wanted her to see it first hand.”

Brown also goes on to talk about what would happen if the provincial government does not act fast on the situation. “If they don’t fix this…if they don’t fix healthcare in Brampton, if they don’t fix hallway medicine in Brampton, well the government will have failed miserably on their commitments,” says Brown. “They haven’t done anything in the first year… they know the clock is ticking and we’re watching, and we’re not going to be quiet.”

Mario Alfaro: