Queen’s Park has announced it will fund six additional beds for Brampton Civic Hospital (BCH) and 72 for Trillium Health Partners (THP) in anticipation of the surge of patients at the two hospitals when flu season arrives soon.

The Liberal government will also provide for 15 short-term transitional care spaces for seniors in Malton for Peel residents.

Also, the Mississauga-Halton Local Health Integrated Network (LHIN) — serving South Etobicoke, Mississauga, Halton Hills, Oakville, and Milton — will get 75 short-term transitional beds for seniors.

"Osler's Brampton Civic Hospital is funded for 608 beds," said Alineh Haidery, manager, public relations, William Osler Health System (Osler). "The addition of six beds as announced this week will help support patients for the winter during the busy flu season (surge period), though Osler is preparing for continued increasing patient volumes across its three sites."

Across Ontario, the government has allocated $140 million in funding for 2,000 additional beds and spaces to reduce wait times in hospitals, at home and in the community, said Dr. Eric Hoskins, minister of health and long-term at Sinai Health System, Monday (Oct. 23).

"Our government is taking action to ensure people across Ontario have access to the care they need, when and where they need it,” Hoskins wrote in a press release. “By investing in hospitals, community care and home care, we are reducing wait times and improving access to health care services across our health system’s entire continuum of care."

The issue of chronic hospital overcrowding in Peel came to the forefront recently when Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath released numbers (obtained through freedom of information requests) showing that from January to May, BCH was operating at over 100 per cent acute bed capacity. Some months, it hit 110 per cent.

At that time, Horwath, addressed the media in Brampton along with several patients who spent several days on gurneys in the hallways of BCH shared their traumatic stories at the press conference.

Sunanda Dhanna, a registered nurse at THP, recalled how she spent two-and-a-half days on a stretcher at various hallways at the Brampton hospital.

“I was shuffled from hallway to hallway, once at 1 a.m.,” Sunanda Dhanna, a registered nurse working at THP, told the media. “I had no privacy, I couldn’t sleep because the hallways are so loud and busy, and I didn’t even get a meal for the first day and a half. What is happening to our hospitals is unacceptable — something has to be done.”