{"id":18468,"date":"2022-02-25T16:32:26","date_gmt":"2022-02-25T21:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=18468"},"modified":"2022-03-07T16:46:31","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T21:46:31","slug":"ontario-health-coalition-cornwall-chapter-push-back-on-privatization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/ontario-health-coalition-cornwall-chapter-push-back-on-privatization\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario Health Coalition, Cornwall chapter, push back on privatization"},"content":{"rendered":"

(February 23, 2022)<\/p>\n

By: Todd Hambleton, Standard-Freeholder<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

Screenshot of Cornwall Health Coalition Zoom meeting on Wednesday morning.Handout\/Standard-Freeholder\/Postmedia Network<\/span>\u00a0jpg, CO<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The Cornwall chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition had a Zoom meeting\/presentation Wednesday morning and took aim at what it calls the Ontario government\u2019s plans of unprecedented for-profit privatization of health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe call this meeting because there\u2019s overwhelming and accumulating evidence that the government is moving towards privatization,\u201d said Elaine MacDonald, co-chair of the Cornwall chapter. \u201cWe\u2019re going to expose it, shine a bright light on it, and stop it in its tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The presentation, one of many being held this week by health coalitions across the province to warn about what it will mean for local public health-care services, began with a video clip of Ontario Deputy Premier Christine Elliott, the minister of health, making comments earlier in the month about allowing independent health facilities to operate private hospitals.<\/p>\n

MacDonald said Elliott had just touched the \u201cthird rail of Ontario politics,\u201d but that it was in an under-the-radar way and that no sparks flew. But, she said, that is changing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re pushing back and will make this the defining issue of the (provincial June election),\u201d MacDonald said, adding that upcoming steps being taken will include a public summit on April 9, and a call to action.<\/p>\n

For the Cornwall meeting on Wednesday, a retired local resident, Rainer Pethke, who\u2019s a father, grandfather and caregiver, said \u201cprivatization is two-tier health care, let\u2019s not fudge around that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n

Pethke said that if Ontario continues along the privatization path, complex care will be even more difficult outside of large urban areas, and from his personal experiences he believes the existing health-care system is far from perfect, but that privatization will make it worse.<\/p>\n

Michael Hurley, CUPE\u2019s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU\/CUPE) president, spoke during the presentation, and said the Ford government\u2019s announced funding for independent health facilities is a huge concern, and that it\u2019ll result in preferred service for the wealthy, and \u201cthe rest of us will queue up in longer and longer lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hurley said the province has huge capacity and staffing problems, and he added expanding private care must be seen through the prism of the pandemic, during which three-quarters of deaths in long-term care settings in eastern Ontario came in private, for-profit facilities where substandard conditions existed and where there were shoddy efforts at following safety protocols.<\/p>\n

Ontario data on COVID-19 related fatalities in long-term care centres within the Eastern Ontario Health Unit isn\u2019t quite the same\u2014 the facility with the largest number of fatalities is the municipally owned Residence Prescott-Russell in Hawkesbury, where 16 have died.<\/p>\n