Hampton urges province to reconsider ambulance funding

News Release
Howard Hampton, MPP

Queen’s Park - Howard Hampton, MPP Kenora-Rainy River and Ontario NDP Leader today asked the McGuinty government to take back the delivery of land ambulance service.
Before the election, Premier McGuinty was very critical of the former Conservative government’s downloading of land ambulance delivery onto municipalities. While in opposition McGuinty asked the former Conservative government this question, “ Why do you insist on going ahead and transferring a broken-down ambulance system to our municipal partners, who are saying, ‘We can’t handle it; we can’t cope with it.’ “
Recently the Rainy River District Services Administration Board wrote to the Premier urging the McGuinty government’s Ministry of Health to transfer Land Ambulance delivery back to the Province, as municipalities in this district and districts across the north just can’t absorb the increased costs and the shrinking provincial portion of land ambulance costs.
“In Rainy River District and districts across the North, municipalities are telling the McGuinty government, when it comes to the increasing financial burden of providing land ambulance delivery, they just can’t handle it anymore and they just can’t cope with it,” Hampton said. “The cost of ambulance delivery has almost doubled since the province downloaded the responsibility to municipalities, but the province doesn’t provide funding that comes close to the increased costs.”
Hampton stressed that the downloading of ambulance delivery has been especially hard on rural northern municipalities where District Services Boards contend with huge geography and sparse populations.
“Land ambulance delivery is an integral part of the Province’s health care system and should be administered through the Ministry of Health and not municipalities,” Hampton said. “The McGuinty government needs to address this situation before they force municipalities to make cuts to ambulance service throughout the north.”