(April 18th, 2023)<\/p>\n
By: Brent Lale, CTV News London<\/p>\n
The Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) fears the province is headed for an American-style, two-tier healthcare system. \u201cWe can\u2019t staff hospitals as it is right now,\u201d said Peter Bergmanis, co-chair of the London chapter of the OHC. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got another tier of care, where the lifestyle is going to be much more preferred than having your wages capped, I have a feeling you\u2019re going to see an exodus of people right into the for-profit system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Doug Ford government is expected to pass a bill titled \u2018Your Health Act\u2019 (YHA). The legislation includes procedures like cataract surgeries, MRIs, and CT scans being moved to private clinics. The Province said it is investing nearly $80 billion this year into the publicly funded healthcare system.<\/p>\n
\u201cPremier [Doug] Ford, and Minister [Sylvia] Jones have been clear, Ontarians will access our healthcare system with their OHIP card and not their credit card,\u201d said a spokesperson for the Ministry of Health. \u201cOur government knows wait times for surgeries and diagnostic tests have been increasing year after year. We are not okay with the status quo and know more work needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mary Ann Hodge, Teresa Bell, and Lynn Brown attended the London Health Coalition rally at St. Joseph\u2019s Hospital in London, Ont. on April 18, 2023. (Brent Lale\/CTV News London) They said YHA includes a plan to eliminate the surgical backlog and reduce wait times. \u201cPrivatizing these systems hasn\u2019t worked in any jurisdiction really to provide better care on mass,\u201d said Jacob Shelley, an Associate Professor jointly appointed to the Faculty of Law and School of Health Studies, Faculty of Health Sciences, at Western University. \u201cIt just provides better care for those that can afford it\u201d.<\/p>\n
Shelley believes those that can\u2019t afford privatized care will be put into a worse situation. \u201cWhile that might not seem to have an impact on any of us, the pandemic has shown how inextricably linked we are as a society. As the health of the lower socio-economic kind of strata of society are impacted that\u2019s going to have a impact on the rest of society,\u201d said Shelley.<\/p>\n
The OHC argued the bill will pass without any public consultation. \u201cThey claimed they weren\u2019t even going to do it when they got elected,\u201d said Bergmanis. \u201cYet two months after election, suddenly they\u2019re giving our money to for-profit clinics to do what we could do in our public hospitals.\u201d Londoners voted in a London Health Coalition referendum with hopes to prevent the privatization of healthcare on April 18, 2023. (Brent Lale\/CTV News London)<\/p>\n
The OHC gathered in cities across the province today to launch a citizen-run referendum. They are asking anyone over the age of 16 to vote either online or with a physical ballot with the hope of stopping the privatization of health care. The coalition said they\u2019ll continue this fight for the next couple of months. They plan on taking all the ballots to Queens Park before the legislature breaks for summer.<\/p>\n