Advisory: Hundreds to Converge on Sudbury to Protest Hospital Cuts and the Privatization of Hospital and Home Care Services

SUDBURY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - April 17, 2015) -

Attn: Assignment Editor

Concerned citizens are joining forces to raise the alarm about the disproportionate hospital cuts across northeastern Ontario. Local chapters of the Ontario Health Coalition from towns across the northeast will be travelling to MPP Glenn Thibeault's office in Sudbury for a Day of Action to press the government to stop the cuts.

Across the north, already, many hospitals are operating at full capacity, often with patients lined up in stretchers in hallways waiting for hospital beds. After decades of downsizing, Ontario's hospitals have been cut more deeply than anywhere in Canada, and now have the fewest beds left of any province in the country. The massive cuts to programs, services, departments all across the hospitals and hundreds of nurses, front-line personal support workers, and support and clerical staff put patients at risk.

The Health Coalition is hoping the Ontario government will hear the message that Ontarians cannot take any more hospital cuts, and hospital and home care privatization must be stopped.

Visual: Hundreds of balloons will be signed with messages directed at MPP Glenn Thibeault and the Liberal government. There will also be a parade of cuts, where all the proposed hospital cuts across the Northeast will be displayed visually in a procession.

When: Friday April 17, 12 p.m.

Where: Constituency office of MPP Glenn Thibeault, 555 Barry Downe Rd., Unit 4B, Sudbury

Who: Ontario Health Coalition, Temiskaming Health Coalition, North Bay Health Coalition, Sault Ste. Marie Health Coalition, Sudbury Health Coalition, Northeastern Ontario Health Coalition.

After releasing the date of the Day of Action, the Health Coalition was informed that Mr. Thibeault is now planning, conveniently, to hold a media conference on a different topic, across town at the same time as the rally at his office. We are disappointed that Mr. Thibeault is planning to miss the crowd of concerned citizens, many of whom have travelled hundreds of kilometres to raise these serious issues, as well as hundreds of local residents.