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Letter to the Editor re. Privatization of Public Health Care in Ontario
I am very concerned that the present Ontario Government is increasing the role of private for-profit companies in our public health care system.
The Ontario Government is privatizing 18,000 long-term care beds for the next 30 years, privatizing the last part of home care, privatizing COVID-testing and vaccines and is now talking about allowing private for-profit clinics to operate private hospitals to perform surgeries and other procedures.
This clearly undermines our public health care system which is based on the principle that medically necessary health care should be provided on medical need not on the ability to pay.
Per capita, Ontario has the lowest health care and hospital funding and the fewest hospital beds and nurses of any province in Canada. The Ontario Government needs to invest more on public health care not on private for-profit companies which charge additional fees, reduce staff, and pay lower wages in order to pay dividends to their shareholders.
The Ontario Nurses Association states that Ontario now needs 22,000 more nurses. This serious shortage of nurses is the result of the last Liberal Government’s layoff of nurses and the present Conservative Government’s wage-suppression law, Bill 124. Ontario nurses and health care workers have been doing their best on the frontlines to care for their patients during the pandemic but the system is severely understaffed. Bill 124 should be repealed. We need to retain, recruit, and return health care workers by showing them the respect that they deserve with better wages, paid sick days and mental health supports.
At this time, many people are suffering with grief, loss, stress, depression as a result of the pandemic. The next Ontario Government should provide a universal mental health care plan that would put counselling and therapy under OHIP and expand publicly funded mental health services. The Ontario Government has the funds to improve mental health care.
Public health care will be a major issue in the Ontario election on June 2. Ontarians do not benefit from more privatization of our public health care system. We deserve better.
Brian Lynch
435 York St.
Cornwall, ON.
K6J 3Z6
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Nicely said Brian. I am a Cornwall native, and currently a US resident. I pay for private health insurance in the USA and it’s very expensive. The monthly health insurance premium that my wife and I pay is over $2,200 – that’s almost $27,000 USD per year! And our premiums go up every year. That’s the ugly truth behind private health insurance.
It seems the Conservatives in Canada are in bed with private for-profit healthcare companies. So many Canadians I know mistakingly believe that privately funded healthcare is superior to the Canadian universal model, and yet many of them have no idea how much it would actually cost them to have that kind of coverage. The government isn’t telling the whole story, and the greedy insurance companies sure won’t tell the truth upfront because they know most Canadians would never buy into their game.
My fear is that if people allow the Conservatives to have their way, we will forever lose something that the majority of Americans envy. Hopefully the message will be made clear and people will stand up to the big money backing private insurance companies before it’s too late.
Good article. Nice to read your editorial on Health care. What I fear the most is it seems according to an ad that Pierre Poilievre seems to want to get rid of all social programs if he gets elected as leader and then PM. It is a shame that what Tommy Douglas and Lester B. Pearson started might all be gone one day. The Conservative brand seems wants to destroy all what is good in this country.
Yep… that’s how we become a free-er society at the hands of the Cons.. we are free to pay for all the social programs we currently enjoy. (And for all those who are into crypto… does that mean the govt regulates it and every single penny is accounted for?… asking for a friend…)