LTE: Concerns About Bill 60: A Threat to Ontario’s Public Hospitals

Dear Editor:

The Ontario Conservative Government with its Bill 60 (May 2023) will expand the use of private, for-profit facilities to perform publicly funded surgical and diagnostic procedures 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.

This privatization will take away desperately needed staff and funding from our public hospitals. The private, for-profit facilities take the easy surgeries, extra bill which is unlawful, upsell patients and make the waiting list longer. 

Documents now show that the Ford Conservatives are paying for-profit facilities more than double what they pay public hospitals for the same OHIP-covered surgeries.  

The Canadian Centre for Alternatives’ recent detailed report concludes that “privatization risks destabilizing public hospitals, increasing wait times, and entrenching a for-profit hospital industry that seeks to dismantle public health care.”  The result is a two-tier health care system.

The Ford Government at this time should be investing more funds 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.  Privatization of our hospitals does not work.

Brian Lynch,
Cornwall, Ontario