March 18, 2026, The Toronto Star
By Iris Gorfinkel Contributor
Iris Gorfinkel is a family physician and clinical researcher in Toronto.
Imagine spending the night on a stretcher in a fluorescent-lit ER hallway. When Doug Ford was elected premier in 2018, he promised to “end hallway medicine.” But by 2024, the problem had doubled to some 2,000 Ontarians lying on stretchers in hospital hallways.
That is not just a statistic, it’s a symptom of a deeper problem.
Public health lives or dies on how governments spend taxpayer dollars. Policy determines whether people have affordable housing, supervised consumption sites, enough health-care workers and access to appropriate care. But under Ford’s leadership, Ontario has enacted five laws that have further entrenched hallway medicine.
Failing to provide affordable housing
Good health is impossible without stable housing. Bill 6 effectively criminalizes encampments and the people living in them, with fines up to $10,000 and jail sentences as long as six months for those who refuse to leave. The consequences of overcrowded shelters, precarious rentals and chronic homelessness are more ER visits, infections, overdoses and early deaths. A night spent in hospital costs around $2,000. A night spent in subsidized housing costs well under $160. This adds pressure to already-crowded ERs and worsens the hallway medicine burden.
Read more at the Star.com
