LTE about the expansion of private, for profit health clinics

Dear Editor,

The Ontario Conservative Government with its Bill 60 will expand the use of private, for-profit health clinics at the expense of our public hospitals.

The Ford Government has already underfunded the public hospitals, created a staffing crisis with its wage suppression Bill 124 and left our hospitals with operating rooms and emergency departments closed at various times and long wait times for surgeries and other procedures.

Having created this crisis in our public hospitals, the Ford Government’s solution is to privatize and give millions of dollars to private, for-profit surgical and diagnostical clinics.  This privatization will take away desperately needed staff and funding from our public hospitals. The private clinics will also take the easy surgeries, extra bill patients by upselling and make the waiting list longer. 

I fear that the Ontario Government’s Bill 60 will create a two-tier health care system, one for those with the money to jump the queue and the other for everyone else who will have to wait even longer for health care.

Our Canadian public health care system is based on the principle that medically necessary health care should be provided on a medical need not on the ability to pay.

The Ford Government at this time should be investing the billions that are earmarked for health care in our public hospitals, make full use of the operating rooms that are sitting empty, pay our dedicated health care workers a fair wage and hire more so that our hospitals can operate at full capacity.

Over the years, Ontarians have volunteered, fundraised and donated to our hospitals.  We must save our public hospitals and stop Premier Ford’s plans to privatize their services   Our public hospitals are not for sale.

Brian Lynch, 
Cornwall, ON.