‘If we close, people die’: Rural Ontario hospitals await ER staffing certainty

Rural and northern Ontario hospitals are anxiously awaiting word from the provincial government on a program that helps them keep emergency rooms open, after it ended last month. 

April 7, 2025

By Allison Jones The Canadian Press

Ambulances are parked outside the Emergency Department at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus in Ottawa on Monday, May 16, 2022. Rural and northern Ontario hospitals are anxiously awaiting word from the provincial government on a program that helps them keep ERs open, after it ended last month. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Health Minister Sylvia Jones’ office has said it is working on a permanent solution after the temporary program expired, but in the meantime the people who work to keep ERs open are concerned about filling those shifts.

“Because we’re so short-staffed, we cannot run a 24-hour emergency department without outside physician support,” said Ann Fenlon, the medical recruitment and retention co-ordinator at Lady Dunn Health Centre in Wawa, Ont.

The northern Ontario community is supposed to have seven doctors who provide both family and emergency medicine, but they currently have three, Fenlon said. They have not had to close their ER, but they have come close, she said.

“We’re 240 kilometres away from the next hospital,” Fenlon said. “If we close, people die.”

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