To the editor:
Anyone who’s been watching the news is aware of the fact that the Ford government is moving gradually but steadily to privatize hospitals throughout the province. The argument in favour of this is that (a) the current array of hospitals are grossly overburdened, under-staffed, and (b) that privatization will address these issues, and the long wait lists that result from them.
Leave aside for the moment the fact that some of these problems have been caused by the very government that now proposes to address them in this way—they capped nurse's salaries, allowed surgical rooms to stand empty, etc.
Leave aside for the moment the horrors in private LTC homes that we saw at the peak of COVID, compared to comparable rates of infections and death in public homes.
What is at risk here is our long-standing, hard-won, and previously well-managed array of PUBLIC health care throughout the province.
COVID hit hospitals hard. And the fact that federal transfer funds to address some of these problems were not used for their intended purpose has only worsened the problem.
Why does this government think that privatization will solve it?
Privatization means for-profit, fee-for-service, delivery of health care. Surgeries, MRIs, and CTs are already on the firing line. Currently, they are core public hospital services. And ought to remain that way.
Health care is a fundamental human right, and has been delivered as such in Ontario, and across Canada, for decades. Those of us old enough to remember what it was like before OHIP are well aware of what an incredible change taxpayer-funded public health care has made—and can continue to make. To citizens of all ages. And what a legacy a sound well-supported public health care array in the province can be for our children, our grandchildren.
We are the citizens who benefit from such a sound, public, health care array of services.
We built the hospitals, with our taxes. We equipped them, with our taxes and donations. We staffed them, with our taxes. We’ve volunteered to support and improve them. We’ve struggled all along to bring these public services closer to our home communities, to serve people better, when they are in need. How can we stand by, silently, and have this ripped from our hands, and communities?
Who benefits from privatized health care?
- those who have the money to access it
- those who have investments in it
- those who have control of it
That’s not most of us.
Citizens of Ontario have been protesting this creeping privatization of health care for the last years. The provincial government has ignored their valid concerns, and the anxiety this causes.
Now the provincial government, “For the People”, has made it clear that this is its goal: to privatize the province’s public hospitals. The government never identified this goal previously; the Ontario public has never had any say about this plan to cut these vital services from our local public hospitals and privatize them
These are OUR hospitals—the government is only their “caretaker”. WE decide whether we want to hold on to the public health care that has served us so well in the past, even under desperate circumstances. Not the government.
The government has been flooded with protests, written, phoned, in person. It’s made no difference.
As a consequence, thousands of Ontarians have taken to the streets of their communities to organize a mass citizen-run referendum. The Ontario Health Coalition and its local chapters across the province launched the referendum on Tuesday April 18 in media conferences and availabilities across Ontario.
The government introduced enabling legislation on the first day the Ontario Legislature re-opened in February and has used its majority to push through Bill 60 and vote down all amendments proposed by the Opposition parties. Thus, any public hearings as brief and without notice as they were, were pro forma, and had no impact on Ford’s plans. The legislation is expected currently under legal challenge, but the government is steamrolling its implementation ahead.
The Ontario Health Coalition has decades of advocating for public health care in Ontario, with many successes. The OHC is calling on all Ontarians to raise your voices, to block this violation of human rights, sound health care, and simple justice.
We can stop this. We are the owners of public health care. Please, for all our sake, we must keep it that way
There are local coalitions in most towns and cities across the province.
The North Bay Health Coalition can be contacted through its leader, Henri Giroux at 705-471-7746 or [email protected]
Kathleen Kilburn
North Bay
