For Immediate Release

Friday April 28, 2006

GTA/905 Mayors and Chairs Pass Third Resolution Calling on the Province to Provide Growth Funding for Local Hospitals

Milton:  At a meeting of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton (GTAH) Mayors and Chairs Committee, mayors and chairs passed yet another resolution calling on the Government of Ontario to address the growing gap in hospital funding for the more than three million residents living in the GTA/905 regions of Durham, Halton, Peel and York.

Today’s meeting of GTAH Mayors and Chairs included the Honourable Michael Chong, Federal Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister Joe Cordiano, Provincial Minister for Economic Development and Trade and Minister Responsible for the GTA. 

“We need to continue to remind the Province that this is a very important issue for GTA/905 residents and the priority in my community”, said Mayor Steve Parrish, Mayor of the Town of Ajax. “The fact that the hospital funding gap is getting wider each year is due primarily to a lack of growth funding for GTA/905 hospitals and a lack of a health care strategy for Ontario’s high growth regions”

Today’s resolution was tabled by Mayor Gordon Krantz, Mayor and Regional Councillor of the Town of Milton and was unanimously passed.  The resolution, the third resolution passed over the past two years by GTAH Mayors and Chairs on the issue of hospital funding in the GTA/905, calls on the Province of Ontario to:

·        Provide immediate growth funding to GTA/905 hospitals so they can meet the hospital care needs of the growing number of residents in GTA/905 communities;

·        Commit to funding new Local Health Integration Networks (LHIN) for hospital and other health care services on the basis of LHIN population size, growth and characteristics;

·        Begin developing a hospital and health services plan for Ontario’s high growth regions to help build the “complete communities” envisioned in Places to Grow.

Information shared by the GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance with the GTAH Mayors and Chairs showed that while announcements have been made to expand hospital facilities across a number of GTA/905 communities mean improved local access to care and some increased hospital funding three to seven years from now, hospital operating funding for GTA/905 residents’ hospital care today and the next few years continues to fall behind that of other Ontarians.

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For information contact:

Tariq Asmi, Executive Director

GTA/905 Healthcare Alliance

Cell: (416) 948-2033

Office: (416) 205-1331

RESOLUTION