The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU) is calling on the province to open at least 50 fully-funded and permanent hospital beds for Windsor Regional Hospital.

The unions say the beds are needed to deal with the strain on the hospital system to stem the persistent bed capacity problem, recently highlighted by the influx of patients suffering from the flu.

The Ontario government's "fixation with a policy of few beds, few staff, very high bed occupancy and too low funding, is causing serious capacity problems at Windsor Regional Hospital and hospitals across Ontario," says OCHU president Michael Hurley.

The unions point out that data shows that Ontario has the fewest hospital beds of any province in Canada and the fewest staff for those beds.

"All this poses potential harm to patients who are entitled to timely and safe hospital care. Unfortunately patients are being put at risk because our hospitals don't have enough beds to admit those who require in-hospital care. We urge the health minister to act and restore 50 fully-funded beds to the Windsor hospital immediately," says OCHU president Michael Hurley.

Windsor Regional Hospital has 543 beds total between its two campuses. Adding 50 permanent beds (about a 10 per cent increase) would bring the hospital's bed capacity to 593. A level high enough to deal with the recent patient surges the hospital has been challenged with.

The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) maintains in their 2017 pre-budget submission to government that hospitals have made $4.5 billion in budget cuts on behalf of the province. The OHA says the average occupancy has grown to more than 92 per cent at Ontario's hospitals.

Ontario's Financial Accountability Office estimates health care needs about a 5.3 per cent annual increase to meet basic costs, driven higher than inflation by drugs and medical technologies.

Meanwhile Windsor hospital officials said on Saturday there are 30 "Admit No Bed” patients between both campuses, with 16 of them are at the Ouellette campus.

An official says more beds would provide only a temporary fix instead of a long-term solution.