An offer of help from the federal government is a much-needed one, says Simcoe-Muskoka's medical officer of health.
As Ontario’s record-breaking third wave threatens to overrun the province's health-care system, Dr. Charles Gardner admits the situation the province is facing is dire.
“The system is taxed like it’s never been taxed before,” he said. “Any efforts to procure additional assistance at this time would be warranted.”
From his work with the Central Region of Ontario Health on their response and recovery table, Gardner says he receives regular reports of the current situation in hospitals, adding the load on Ontario hospitals and their intensive care units (ICUs), particularly in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), is “tremendous."
“There are a great number of patients being transferred out of the GTA to neighbouring districts, including here in Simcoe-Muskoka (and) including ICU patients,” said Gardner.
A provincial directive allowing for the movement of health-care workers to where they’d be needed to assist in a response is also positive, the doctor added.
Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard told BarrieToday the province is in this position in the first place due to what he believes is the failure of the federal Liberal government to deliver vaccines to the provinces.
“They can come in on their white horse all they want and say they’re going to provide this help, but the bottom line is we are in this position because of the failure to deliver vaccines which is a federal government responsibility,” said the Conservative MP. “They’ve always been two steps behind everything, whether its vaccine procurement or delivering the type of resources people need.
"For them to come in and say they’re somehow going to solve Ontario’s problems when they’ve created the problem… is pretty disingenuous," Brassard added.
Monday’s budget announcement also included $2.2 billion for Canada’s bio-manufacturing and life-sciences sector to rebuild Canada’s national capacity in bio-manufacturing and vaccine development and production and a promise to procure more vaccines.
Brassard says the Trudeau government needs to shoulder the blame on vaccine distribution.
“They’ve procured a lot of vaccines, but they haven’t delivered a lot of vaccines," Brassard said. "The reason we are in this situation today is because of an absolute, abject failure on part of the federal government to deliver vaccines to the provinces so they can be administered.
"They’ve been speaking about increasing vaccine supply for months and they failed," he added. "They can say all they want about vaccine procurement, but until and unless they’re able to deliver vaccines and vaccinate our population so we can avoid the types of lockdowns and restrictions that we’ve seen… we are going to continue to be in the position we are in today.”
Rebuilding the country’s ability to be self-reliant when it comes to bio-manufacturing is positive, said Brassard, adding prior to the pandemic, there were two things a country needed: The first being food security and agriculture stability, and the second being energy resource security.
“I would say coming out of this pandemic the third thing needs to be pharmaceutical and personal protective equipment (PPE) security as well," he added. "If anything, this has taught us it’s we have to be self-reliant on the issue of pharma and PPE. This is not something that is solely on the government to want, it’s something every Canadian should be demanding of their government coming out of this pandemic because we need to be prepared if we are put in this situation again.”
Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MP Doug Shipley agreed with his Conservative colleague, noting it’s unfortunate Ontario is even in this position to start with.
“We wouldn’t be here if we’d have had a proper vaccine procurement process going back months. We are behind the 8-ball,” Shipley said. “I noticed yesterday, (Prime Minister) Boris Johnson in England was talking about their pubs reopening and going out and having a beer on a patio and enjoying life.
"We are in this position because of our vaccine procurement (and) it’s a little opportunistic now to try and roll in and try to save the day when the day was put in place by past actions of the Trudeau Liberal government," Shipley added.
All that being said, Shipley acknowledged the province does need the help.
“If the help is being offered and the government needs and accepts the help, we need to make sure people are healthy and safe in Ontario," he said.
