A new report from CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) says the funds hospitals use to pay the day-to-day bills have plummeted since 2020. He says it’s called a working capital deficit, noting North Bay’s is at $37.6 million. “The contradiction between the government saying they’re going to give them up to 4% when the budget documents say they’re going to get 3.3% and the Ontario Hospital Association calculates their increases in costs at 6.5%,” he says. “We would say an investment of about $5 billion over three fiscal years would float up capacity in order to do that.” The report says hospital operating deficits reached over $400 million in 2025, with North Bay’s at $7.1 million.