(May 28, 2026) By: Brian Williams, London Free Press<\/p>\n
A group of London health-care activists was at London\u2019s downtown train station shortly after sunrise Thursday, bound for Toronto to join a march at Queen\u2019s Park over what organizers call the \u201cunprecedented privatization\u201d of Ontario\u2019s core hospital services.<\/p>\n
About 100 members of the London Health Coalition were riding together, eventually joining an expected crowd of thousands for the rally. They called the Via Rail ride a \u201ccreative approach\u201d to bringing the frustration of Londoners, as well as people along the corridor stretching to Windsor, to the Ontario legislature.<\/p>\n
The rally is in response to the Doug Ford government\u2019s announcement that it spent $300 million to open 61 new private clinics over the past year, the vast majority of them run for profit, according to the London Health Coalition.<\/p>\n
The coalition noted the funding is in addition to Ford\u2019s privatization of tens of thousands of cataract surgeries in the last two years. The latest round of new clinics is intended to redirect more than 1.2 million patients away from public hospitals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a very aggressive government agenda for applying private-sector solutions to our health care woes,\u201d said Peter Bergmanis, co-chair of the London Health Coalition, calling the rally a way to bring to the Ford government\u2019s attention that such moves aren\u2019t what some Ontarians voted for.<\/p>\n
Health-care budgets are an especially difficult subject in London, Bergmanis said, citing a recent report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives that found London Health Sciences Centre had the largest operating deficit of the province\u2019s 136 hospitals in 2024-25, at nearly $153 million.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a massive teaching hospital and we need this hospital to function properly, and it\u2019s got the worst structural deficit in the province. That means patient care is impacted,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Health called the assertions of the Ontario Health Coalition \u201cmisguided.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOntario is proud to have one of the largest publicly funded health care systems in the world, and our government continues to make record investments, including over $101 billion this year, to connect people to the care they need, when they need it,\u201d ministry spokesperson Lily Barnes said in an email statement.<\/p>\n
Barnes said Ontario leads the country with some of the shortest wait times for critical procedures such as MRI and CT scans and surgeries, noting 83 per cent of people receive surgery within clinically recommended times.<\/p>\n
Since 2018, the province has increased the number of publicly funded, same-day hip and knee surgeries \u201cby 4,260 per cent and 5,840 per cent, respectively,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n
Additionally, $280 million is being invested to connect nearly 300,000 more people to publicly funded MRI and CT scans, endoscopy procedures and orthopedic surgeries, she said, noting an expansion of publicly funded cataract procedures that has allowed 32,000 more people to receive the procedure annually.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur government will continue to deliver more connected, convenient care in every corner of the province, always ensuring that people are accessing the health care they need with their OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan) card, never their credit card,\u201d Barnes said.<\/p>\n
Organizers of Thursday\u2019s rally were \u201ccalling on Ontarians to come out and not take for granted that we will be able to stop the Ford government from privatizing our hospitals,\u201d Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, said in a statement.<\/p>\n