{"id":28682,"date":"2023-05-31T09:54:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T13:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=28682"},"modified":"2023-06-23T09:55:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-23T13:55:01","slug":"kingston-area-residents-vote-no-to-health-care-privatization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/kingston-area-residents-vote-no-to-health-care-privatization\/","title":{"rendered":"Kingston-area residents vote &#8216;no&#8217; to health-care privatization"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(May 30, 2023)<\/p>\n<p>By: Meghan Balogh, Kingston Whig-Standard<\/p>\n<p>More than 10,000 residents in the Kingston region <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewhig.com\/news\/kingston-region-residents-asked-to-weigh-in-on-health-care-privatization\">voted against privatizing health care<\/a> during a provincewide referendum vote organized by the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n<p>During the voting process on May 26 and 27, Ontarians were asked at more than 1,000 polling stations across the province: \u201cDo you want our public hospital services to be privatized to for-profit hospitals and clinics?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to a news release from the Kingston Health Coalition on Tuesday, 10,394 regional residents answered \u201cno\u201d to that question, 138 voted \u201cyes\u201d and 10 ballots were spoiled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe local results show that our community is united in opposition to the government plans to move work out of our public non-profit hospitals into for-profit corporate clinics,\u201d Joan Jardin, co-chair of the Kingston Health Coalition, said in a written statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur community understands that there is space in the public system to improve care for patients. There are many innovative ideas, great staff and wonderful communities and volunteers that can be mobilized to support non-profit care. The real problems start with a lack of government will, systemic underfunding and a 30-year push to for-profit corporations to deliver health care while causing significant staff reductions in the public system. Further privatization will only make the problems worse.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Kingston Health Coalition polled residents in Kingston, Sydenham, Verona and Napanee on May 26 and 27.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe people of Ontario do not want our health-care system privatized,\u201d Kingston Health Coalition co-chair Ross Sutherland told the Whig-Standard on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n<p>Sutherland said that being out in the community administering the voting process was \u201can amazing experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe talked to so many people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a wonderful community education and engagement process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Ontario Health Coalition and its community chapters have been vocally critical of the Ontario government\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewhig.com\/news\/local-news\/integration-key-to-partnerships-with-private-medical-clinics-says-kingston-hospital-ceo\">ongoing plan to integrate private, for-profit clinics<\/a> into the province\u2019s public health system to address surgical wait times.<\/p>\n<p>In recent weeks, the Ontario government passed Bill 60, the Your Health Act, which will enlist more private medical clinics to offer publicly funded surgeries for cataracts and hip and knee replacements, as well as diagnostic imaging and testing.<\/p>\n<p>Sutherland said that privatizing only divides an already strained system that is experiencing growing staffing shortages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a huge problem that is made worse by privatization,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough staff in general. If you divide that staff by two different systems, that staff is used inefficiently, and I think everyone recognizes that as a problem. \u2026 These clinics don\u2019t create more staff. They take staff from hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While partnering with private clinics may seem to take the pressure off wait lists, Sutherland said that running concurrent private and public systems further prevents wait-list integration.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWait times have been a problem for a long time,\u201d he said. \u201c(With privatization) you end up with a public list and a private list, and lists within both those systems with surgeons. There is no efficiency within that process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Ontario Health Coalition will announce its provincewide voting results on Wednesday. Once that happens, representatives will deliver those results to Queen\u2019s Park.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to make this pressure strong enough that not only this government but future governments say that our public health-care system needs to work for people, and it needs to be in the non-profit sector, and that\u2019s how we will be the best integrated, the most efficient and the most responsive, with the best quality and the most accessible,\u201d Sutherland said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we want, and I think that\u2019s also what\u2019s supported by all the signs in the research.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thewhig.com\/news\/kingston-area-residents-vote-no-to-health-care-privatization\">Link to original article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(May 30, 2023) By: Meghan Balogh, Kingston Whig-Standard More than 10,000 residents in the Kingston region voted against privatizing health care during a provincewide referendum vote organized by the Ontario Health Coalition. During the voting process on May 26 and 27, Ontarians were asked at more than 1,000 polling stations across the province: \u201cDo you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Kingston-area residents vote &#039;no&#039; to health-care privatization - Ontario Health Coalition<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"(May 30, 2023) By: Meghan Balogh, Kingston Whig-Standard More than 10,000 residents in the Kingston region voted against privatizing health care during a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/kingston-area-residents-vote-no-to-health-care-privatization\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kingston-area residents vote &#039;no&#039; 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