More than 100 Toronto emergency room professionals released an open letter on Tuesday, urging the province to reverse announced cuts to public health care funding.

“Our emergency departments and hospitals are under tremendous stress, and there is no end in sight for hallway medicine,” according to the letter, addressed to Premier Doug Ford and Christine Elliott, Ontario minister of health and long-term care.

“Keeping people healthy and out of the emergency department is good for patients, our hospitals, taxpayers and ultimately the entire community.”

The letter cites the ongoing opioid epidemic as one of the reasons why the province shouldn’t reduce funding for public health. It pointed out that last month alone, Toronto paramedics responded to 188 suspected overdoses of which seven of the patients died.

Emergency room physician Dr. Raghu Venugopal, speaking after a press conference held at city hall on Tuesday before a board of health budget committee meeting, said hospital emergency departments are sometimes so backed up that patients waiting for treatment lie down on the floor.

“In Toronto emergency departments today, many patients have to be ill, first of all, in a chair — so there are no stretchers available for many patients and many patients ask me directly: ‘Can I please lie down,’ and when they can’t lie down, they lie on the floor. They lie on the floor in the waiting room, they lie on the floor in treatment areas,” Venugopal said.

“This is honest-to-goodness the reality of where we are right now.”

The board of health budget committee is tasked with finding $9.9 million in savings, which takes into account the provincial cuts as well as rising costs, which include an additional $1.1 million to provide school nutrition programs due to an increase in food costs, and a cost-of-living increase of $4.5 million to provide other programs.

After meeting in the afternoon, the committee recommended cutting $4.4 million in ancillary programs and services — including a reduction in spending on a dental care program for low-income seniors, after the province announced a dental plan of its own for Ontario seniors.

But that means the public health budget is still underfunded by $5.5 million.

The committee voted to ask the province to reverse the funding cuts in order to bridge that gap, and if that doesn’t work, it is recommending the city step in and provide the missing funding to public health.

The committee didn’t address the bigger issue — after 2020, the funding gap will rise to $14 million a year.

Ministry spokesperson Travis Kann said the city should be able to find savings in its annual $13-billion budget to offset the drop in provincial funding to public health. He pointed out that the province is providing transitional funding for 2020 to give municipalities more time to identify savings.

Kann also said that Mayor John Tory said in a letter to the premier that he is willing to work with the province to find efficiencies, but that the city needed more time and dialogue — both of which are being provided.

“Our government has been working with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the City of Toronto and with the Association of Local Public Health Agencies ... since April to discuss modernization of the sector,” Kann said.

Ford announced in August that the province would reduce funding to public health by 30 per cent.

While that is less than what was initially announced after the provincial budget was tabled, Cressy said Tuesday before the board of health budget committee meeting that the province should be adding money to public health budgets, not reducing it.

“This is fundamentally about prevention, and every dollar you invest, you save dollars and you improve the health of people and so we should be investing more, not less in public health,” Cressy said.

“For our budget, every year we go through and we find areas to deliver our services better with savings. We’re going to do that again, but there aren’t enough savings to make up for the provincial cuts, it’s just that simple.”

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Ford backed down from deeper cuts in the face of lobbying by Cressy (Ward 10, Spadina-Fort York), Tory, who began canvassing voters in a downtown ward represented by a Conservative MPP on the issue, and other municipal and public health officials provincewide.

The committee recommendations will be considered by the board of health at a meeting on Sept. 23.

Correction - September 4, 2019: The headline and photo caption were edited from a previous version that incorrectly said that more than 100 Toronto emergency room doctors are urging the province to reverse cuts. In fact, as stated correctly in the article, more than 100 Toronto emergency room professionals are urging the province to reverse cuts to public health care funding.

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