TORONTO -- Ontario's New Democrats say they'll hire 4,500 nurses in their first year in office if elected in June.
The NDP says it would also create 2,000 new hospital beds and put a moratorium on layoffs of frontline health-care workers in that time.
The party says the promises will be funded with the $1.2 billion earmarked for health-care investments in its platform but that hadn't been detailed in the document, which was released before the election campaign began.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath made the announcement Thursday morning at a campaign stop in Toronto, saying it would help ease the strain on hospitals.
Horwath says the governing Liberals have left frontline staff without basic resources, and warns that a Progressive Conservative government under Doug Ford would bring cuts and open the door to a two-tier health-care system.
Ford has not released a platform but has promised to end what he calls "hallway medicine" and add 15,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years if elected.
In the Liberals' budget delivered this spring, Premier Kathleen Wynne pledged to boost hospital funding by $822 million in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, a 4.6 per cent increase
Both the Liberals and the NDP have also promised to add thousands of long-term care beds.
