With health care being the central focus of the NDP's Northern Ontario platform, Gilles Bisson spent time talking about the lack of health services in the North this week.
Monday, NDP leader Andrea Horwath was in Sudbury to launch the Northern Ontario platform that focuses on affordability and health care.
At his campaign office on Third Avenue, incumbent NDP candidate Bisson focussed on health care in the region, saying more needs to be done to deal with the demand for health services. The NDP's plan includes hiring 300 doctors in Northern Ontario — including 100 specialists and 40 mental health practitioners, guaranteeing the Northern Health Travel Grant is paid back within 14 days and declaring the opioid crisis a public health emergency.
"The one thing that we’ve learned through the pandemic is that our health services are hurting," said Bisson.
"As we went into the pandemic, we saw what happened in long-term care, we saw what happened in home care and we’ve certainly seen what happened in hospitals. Over a million cases backed up as a result of COVID and part of the reason we had such a problem is that both the Liberals and Tories over the years have not made inflation when it comes to keeping those budgets where they need to be."
Bisson said the NDP has met with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) a number of times.
“They’ve told us what they want, the province has given some of that but they’ve met the need at about 30 per cent. So we need to make sure that we bolster that and get to where we gotta go,” he said.
Mental health services should be brought into the public system so people bring their health card, not credit card to access services, said Bisson.
“Look around our community of Timmins. How many people do we see have mental health issues within our community who are not getting the services that they need because if you don’t have a health plan, you can’t get in to see the type of treatment that you need to deal with your mental health services,” Bisson said.
For the opioid crisis, the NDP plan also includes expediting additional supervised consumption sites and investing in treatment such as detox and rehab beds.
There's no cost associated with the platform promises.
“What’s the cost of not doing it, is what I would say," said Bisson.
“The Tories who are supposed to be fiscally responsible have a $20 billion deficit this year and there’s no real investment when it comes to healthcare, when it comes to housing, when it comes to most things that matter to people."
So far, four people are running in Timmins. The other candidates are New Blue David Farrell, Progressive Conservative George Pirie, and Ontario Provincial Confederation of Regions Party Nadia Sadiq.
Election day is June 2.
