Health care workers are once again calling on the province to increase healthcare funding to support actual operating costs.
“We demand this government honour its promises,” Michael Hurley, president of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, told a rally outside MPP Vic Fedeli’s office on Monday. “Fund our hospitals at the real costs, invest, add beds, add staff, wipe out the deficits. Nothing else will do.”
Hurley says hospital operating costs need more like 6% increases, not the 2% to 3.5% they’ve been receiving.
He adds healthcare workers aren’t going to stop delivering the message.
“They’re going to keep at this because they have to look into the eyes of these people who are very sick, or their families every day, and know that we can do more to alleviate their suffering or help them to get better faster,” says Hurley.
Mike Turgeon, President of CUPE Local 139, says people in North Bay and across Ontario deserve healthcare that’s funded at the appropriate amount.
“No more 4%, no more 2% austerity measures,” he says.
[RELATED] CUPE continues call for more hospital beds and funding
[RELATED] Union makes its case for 6% hospital funding increase
As part of Budget 2026, the province said it’s investing an additional $1.1 billion into Ontario’s hospital sector, representing a 4 per cent increase in annual support for the fourth year in a row.
In early 2026, base funding was increased at a couple local hospitals by over $11 million.
[RELATED] Base funding boosted at hospitals in North Bay and Mattawa
It has also announced its investing approximately $64 billion in major health infrastructure over the next decade.
