Health Minister Sylvia Jones struggled with questions about Ontario's health-care system at a press conference on Thursday.

She did not have an answer to how many children are in intensive care units when asked twice by a Canadian Press reporter.

"It goes up and down depending on how many are discharged, how many are moved to a community hospital, perhaps repatriated to their own hospital. And so it's data that is constantly being changed and monitored," she said at Toronto General Hospital, which she visited to announce $182 million in hospital infrastructure funding.

Hospitals — especially children's hospitals — are currently swamped by a triple threat of flu, RSV and COVID-19 cases. Seven kids were resuscitated this past weekend at CHEO, in Ottawa. And an Oakville child was almost sent to Buffalo due to a lack of ICU space in the province, CityNews reported.

The health minister didn't say whether her government predicted the current spike or how it prepared hospitals.

"I don't think in the health-care system you can ever predict 100 per cent what is going to happen, in terms of numbers. But we have prepared for what we expected to be a more intense ... fall and winter season," she said.

The minister said the increase in new cases is slowing down. That doesn't necessarily mean cases are plateauing, but it "is a good sign," she said.

She also didn't say whether the province has a rubric for how bad things can get before implementing a mask mandate or other public health measures. She spoke about the importance of vaccines and masking instead.

Jones deployed a similar non-sequitur at Tuesday's scrums at Queen's Park when a QP Briefing reporter asked the same question.

"So I believe you referenced CHEO," she said (he had not). "I want to talk about all of the working together and partnerships that have happened within our health-care systems..."

The rest of the answer — Jones' last one before ending the scrum — took more than a minute and did not address the question. On Thursday morning, following a couple followup calls and texts and an email sent to the premier’s office’s spokespeople, Jones’ spokesperson responded to QP Briefing’s request for an answer saying “we refer you to Dr. Moore’s comments on Monday.”

READ MORE: Ontario’s top doctor ‘strongly’ recommends masks, warns mandate on table

At her press conference on Thursday, Jones also repeated her claim that anyone who needs health care in Ontario will be able to get it "in a timely manner."

But she said people should see their primary care physicians before they go to emergency rooms. She did not address the fact that millions of Ontarians don't have family doctors.

"We have a robust system when all of the players are working together. And we need all those parts to be basically operating at 100 per cent," she said.

When she was in a tough spot, the health minister sometimes pivoted to talking about health-care funding in general.

This happened when Global asked who scratched out a line in her briefing notes that read: "No, we are not privatizing health care. Full stop."

"Listen, I'm going to answer that question the same way I answered that question in question period that day. And that was: 'No, no, no.' We are making investments in our publicly funded health-care system in Ontario," she said.

Queen's Park Today asked Jones to be unambiguous: will Ontario's health-care system continue to be publicly funded, operated and staffed?

"Well, I would suggest that you only need to look at our most recent budget that was passed in August of this year, and that was a $5-billion increase in the health-care budget," she said.

When pressed, she interrupted the reporter to say, "Five billion dollars."

Later, when she was asked if it was time to open Ontario's $3.5-billion contingency fund for immediate health-care fixes, she replied: "So again, I will point to the most recent budget that was passed in August of this year, a $5-billion investment in Ontario hospitals and health-care systems."

She noted the child who was almost sent to Buffalo ended up getting care in London — 150 kilometres from the hospital his mother tried to take him to first, in Oakville.

To parents waiting up to half a day to get their kid seen in an ER, she said, "I completely understand your distress, your concern, but you have a government that has your back."

QPB put many of these questions to Jones' office and the Ministry of Health.

"The answers Minister Jones gave today at the referenced press conference stand," Jones' spokesperson, Hannah Jensen, said in an email.

Asked whether the minister did not want to address the questions or didn't have the answers, Jensen did not reply.

With files from Charlie Pinkerton

Health minister dodges questions about swamped hospitals

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