Media Advisory - Hospital Nurses, Health-Care Professionals to Hold All-Out Rallies Across Ontario

TORONTO, March 18, 2025 /CNW/ - Thousands of registered nurses (RNs) and health-care professionals will be holding "all-out rallies" across Ontario on March 20. The hospital-sector workers, members of the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA), are taking action to demand hospital CEOs include RN-to-patient ratios in a new collective agreement.

The rallies will be held in 26 Ontario hospital locations; ONA Provincial President Erin Ariss, RN, says that Ontario's hospital CEOs are doing all they can to NOT implement staffing ratios, despite ratios being extremely successful in other jurisdictions in both Canada and the U.S.

"The impact of decisions made by the Ford government and the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) over the past decade have left Ontario with a severe understaffing crisis – the worst in Canada – and patients are being treated in understaffed, underfunded hospitals," she says. "As we near the arbitration dates for 60,000 hospital-sector nurses, we are hitting the streets to put pressure on hospital CEOs to put these ratios in place."

ONA will head to arbitration on April 2 and 3, 2025. The all-out rallies are one of a number of escalating actions to demand nursing ratios.

ONA is the union representing more than 68,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, as well as 18,000 nursing student affiliates, providing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community, clinics and industry.

WHAT:   All-out rallies to demand minimum nurse-to-patient staffing ratios
WHEN:  Thursday, March 20, 2025 – times vary
WHO:    Ontario Nurses' Association members, leaders and labour allies
WHERE: 26 sites across Ontario: www.ona.org/march20-rallies

SOURCE Ontario Nurses' Association

For more information: [email protected]