{"id":30171,"date":"2024-12-17T12:15:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T17:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/?p=30171"},"modified":"2024-12-17T12:15:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T17:15:44","slug":"protest-against-health-care-education-cuts-held-in-stratford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca\/index.php\/protest-against-health-care-education-cuts-held-in-stratford\/","title":{"rendered":"Protest against health care, education cuts held in Stratford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(December 16, 2024) By: Bill Atwood, The Stratford Beacon Herald<\/p>\n<p>Chants of \u201chey hey, ho ho, Doug Ford has got to go\u201d rang out in front of the Arden Park Hotel Monday morning as some Stratford residents and others from across Southwestern Ontario gathered outside where the province\u2019s standing committee on finance and economic affairs was holding its pre-budget consultation.<\/p>\n<p>A protest organized by the Ontario Health Coalition against cuts to health care by the Progressive Conservative government, the rally focused on what coalition officials say is the deliberate \u201cunderfunding\u201d and \u201cprivatization\u201d of the province\u2019s public health-care system.<\/p>\n<p>Jim Stewart, chair of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition, said the Ford government is \u201ccontinuing to dismantle and destroy something that we have established for over 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the same time, they\u2019re underfunding our public health care \u2014 our public hospitals \u2014 each and every year by underspending their budgeted dollars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<section class=\"article-content__content-group article-content__content-group--story\">Stewart accused the Ontario government of underfunding the health-care system every year since Ford\u2019s Conservatives were first elected in 2018.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"article-content__content-group article-content__content-group--story\">\u201cThat\u2019s why our public health-care system is in tatters, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re here today to stand up for public health care and demand that the dollars be put back into our public health-care system, and that we save something that we cherish,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Bergmanis, co-chair of the London Health Coalition, highlighted the roughly 1,200 emergency room or urgent care closures across Ontario in 2023, noting the 2024 total, when calculated, will be even more.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you had ever heard of ER closures (prior to the Ford government), you would have been in pure shock. The government of the day would have moved heaven and earth in order to make sure all resources would have been funnelled to get that ER open again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"article-content__content-group article-content__content-group--story\">\n<p data-async=\"\">During his impassioned speech, Bergmanis alleged health-care access for the wealthy has grown by 22 per cent, likely alluding to the the increase in <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/financialpost.com\/pmn\/business-wire-news-releases-pmn\/cmaj-study-showing-lower-income-people-have-less-access-to-for-profit-cataract-surgeries-must-force-a-reconsideration-of-policy-says-hospital-union\" data-evt-val=\"{&quot;control_fields&quot;: {&quot;mparticle&quot;: {&quot;keys&quot;: {&quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;click_source_type&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;anchor_text&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;target_url&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;layout_section&quot;}, &quot;mp_event_type&quot;: &quot;Navigation&quot;, &quot;extra_keys&quot;: [&quot;click_vertical_position_percentage&quot;, &quot;click_vertical_position_pixels&quot;]}}, &quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;in-page link&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;surgeries at for-profit clinics&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;https:\/\/financialpost.com\/pmn\/business-wire-news-releases-pmn\/cmaj-study-showing-lower-income-people-have-less-access-to-for-profit-cataract-surgeries-must-force-a-reconsideration-of-policy-says-hospital-union&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;in-page-link&quot;}\" data-evt=\"click\" data-evt-typ=\"click\">surgeries at for-profit clinics<\/a><\/span>, while \u201cthe public wait list grew by almost 10 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not helping wait lists. It\u2019s only helping the rich. We\u2019re not paying for them to get ahead of us. These should be paying for all of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<section class=\"article-content__content-group article-content__content-group--story\">Members of the health coalitions were joined by those who were protesting a lack of funding for education, including members of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers\u2019 Federation. District president Maureen Matchett said its unfortunate that information about the budget consultations in Stratford was not more widely known.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"article-content__content-group article-content__content-group--story\">\u201cI\u2019m here because public education is important and public health care is important, and this government is underfunding both of them at a ridiculous level,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The province, she added, has been underfunding its schools by about $1,500 per student per year.<\/p>\n<p>While more people being hired would \u201cbe wonderful,\u201d all sectors of education need more funding, Matchett said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the people that make our public education system work as well as it does. Those people are getting burnt out because they have been trying to do so much more with so much less, and they are reaching the breaking point,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p data-async=\"\">This is now the third protest against health-care cuts in Stratford since July. Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees have held two protests, including one that brought a large <span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stratfordbeaconherald.com\/news\/local-news\/trojan-horse-comes-to-stratford-in-fight-against-health-care-privatization\" data-evt-val=\"{&quot;control_fields&quot;: {&quot;mparticle&quot;: {&quot;keys&quot;: {&quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;click_source_type&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;anchor_text&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;target_url&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;layout_section&quot;}, &quot;mp_event_type&quot;: &quot;Navigation&quot;, &quot;extra_keys&quot;: [&quot;click_vertical_position_percentage&quot;, &quot;click_vertical_position_pixels&quot;]}}, &quot;click_source_type&quot;: &quot;in-page link&quot;, &quot;anchor_text&quot;: &quot;Trojan Horse&quot;, &quot;target_url&quot;: &quot;https:\/\/www.stratfordbeaconherald.com\/news\/local-news\/trojan-horse-comes-to-stratford-in-fight-against-health-care-privatization&quot;, &quot;layout_section&quot;: &quot;in-page-link&quot;}\" data-evt=\"click\" data-evt-typ=\"click\">Trojan Horse<\/a><\/span> to Stratford\u2019s public hospital in October. However, the protestors were not joined by the teachers\u2019 union at those rallies. Still, public education is looking at the \u201csame dire consequence that health care is facing,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow is it possible that this government can be so philosophically opposed to public health care and public education, two bedrock components of our entire society? It\u2019s just ridiculous,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>A call to the Ministry of Health for comment was not returned by deadline while Ministry of Education officials were unable to provide a response.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><a style=\"color: #3366ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.stratfordbeaconherald.com\/news\/local-news\/protest-against-health-care-education-cuts-held-in-stratford\">Click here for the original article<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(December 16, 2024) By: Bill Atwood, The Stratford Beacon Herald Chants of \u201chey hey, ho ho, Doug Ford has got to go\u201d rang out in front of the Arden Park Hotel Monday morning as some Stratford residents and others from across Southwestern Ontario gathered outside where the province\u2019s standing committee on finance and economic affairs [&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-30171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ohc-in-the-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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