NDP calls for an Omicron action package

BRAMPTON – Sara Singh, NDP Deputy Leader and critic for Long-Term Care, released the following statement:

“No one wants their loved ones to get sick, no one wants another shutdown, and no one wants hospitals to be overwhelmed. But we need to act now to prevent those things — experts have made it clear we are quickly running out of time.

Day after day, Ford refuses to take actions that could help. He is sleepwalking us right into an Omicron wave.

The NDP is calling for immediate action to prevent illness, prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, and prevent further shut downs:

• Make rapid tests free both for in-pharmacy and take-home testing — and make take-home tests easily available for quick pick-up in places like grocery stores, LCBOs and libraries.
• Speed up booster shots to get moving on the 18+ group before the holidays.
• Speed up vaccines for five to 11 year olds with in-school clinics.
• Reduce contacts for children and youth by shrinking class sizes.
• Make vaccines mandatory in health care and education.
• Launch an urgent recruitment and retention blitz for nurses. Hospitals and vaccination centres are badly short of frontline health care heroes, and the ones that remain are burnt out and exhausted. We cannot do Ontario’s best to care for patients and complete vaccinations and booster shots if Doug Ford sticks with his bad plan to cap nurse wages, and just wave goodbye as thousands of nurses leave.