Hundreds of nurses rally outside Ontario hospitals to demand safer staffing levels
- Muriel Draaisma
- Mar 21
- 2 min read
Hospital CEOs should implement registered nurse to patient ratios to improve workloads, union says
Muriel Draaisma, Naama Weingarten · CBC News · Posted: Mar 20, 2025
Hundreds of nurses rallied outside several Ontario hospitals on Thursday to demand that CEOs improve staffing levels across the province.
The Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA), which represents 68,000 registered nurses, health care professionals and student affiliates, said it wants hospital leaders to implement registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratios to ensure quality of care. Such ratios represent the maximum number of patients that can be cared for by one nurse in a particular hospital unit.
"Safe staffing saves lives and it makes your nurses want to stay," said Liz Romano, an intensive care nurse at Toronto General Hospital for nearly 45 years and bargaining unit president for the ONA at Toronto General and Toronto Western Hospitals.
"We're rallying here today to bring to the public the importance of mandatory nurse-patient ratios. Mandatory nurse-patient ratios mean safe patient care."
Romano said nurse-to-patient staffing ratios reduce the rates of patient complications and death and increase nurse retention and recruitment. She said the ONA would like to see 1:4 nurse-patient ratios in acute surgery and medical floors and 1:1 nurse-patient ratios in intensive care units. She added that the union wants to see the ratios in its contract.
Erin Ariss, provincial president of the ONA, said in an interview that Ontario currently has no nurse-to-patient ratios in its hospitals and has a shortage of 25,000 registered nurses. She said nurse-to-patient ratios are also about improving workloads.
"We want every patient to have the appropriate amount of nursing care so that they receive the best care," Ariss said.
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