(May 3, 2024) By: Mike McDonald, CTV News Northern Ontario<\/p>\n
The de-rostering of thousands of patients at the Group Health Centre in Sault Ste. Marie was the centre of attention at a town hall Friday organized by the Algoma chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n
Guest speakers included politicians, policy analysts and physicians and the focus of the meeting was the need to protect public health care.<\/p>\n
Albert Dupuis of the Ontario Health Coalition Algoma said the gathering was designed to educate the public on the importance of health care and the drawbacks of privatization.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not because we\u2019re lacking resources,\u201d Dupuis said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because the politicians are making choices to deny the investment in the resources that they would be able to put into the public system if they should so choose. Instead, we\u2019re opting for private options and for profiteering.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the vast majority of those in attendance were seniors, Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra said health-care issues affect people of all ages.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeniors are the biggest users of the health system, so it\u2019s kind of natural, but we do find that there\u2019s kind of huge support for public health care among young people, as well,\u201d said Mehra, who said the de-rostering of 10,000 patients at Group Health Centre is drawing attention from across Ontario to the health care crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis primary care crisis, this access crisis, is rolling out in a way we\u2019ve never seen,\u201d said Mehra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Sault Ste. Marie is the epicentre, and I think it\u2019s sort of fitting because the Group Health Centre was the model for community health centres that developed across the province.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here for the video clip and original article<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (May 3, 2024) By: Mike McDonald, CTV News Northern Ontario The de-rostering of thousands of patients at the Group Health Centre in Sault Ste. Marie was the centre of attention at a town hall Friday organized by the Algoma chapter of the Ontario Health Coalition. Guest speakers included politicians, policy analysts and physicians and the […]<\/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-29579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"\n