(May 6, 2016)<\/p>\n
Author: Tyler Kula, Sarnia Observer<\/p>\n
Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath was in Sarnia Friday, hammering home her party’s call for new provincial minimums for hospital funding.<\/p>\n
Just two days earlier in Toronto she’d called for stable, predictable annual budget increases tied to inflation and population growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point our point is stop eroding the health-care system, put some bare minimums in place, and then we can start to talk about rebuilding,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Her comments came after a 45-minute meeting with local healthcare workers, union officials and politicians, talking about their concerns with the healthcare system and what should be done.<\/p>\n
People are worried about the erosion of care, she said, after four years of frozen hospital funding and a funding formula that, in Sarnia-Lambton, has led to millions in lost revenue and about 80 net job losses at Bluewater Health.<\/p>\n
A one-per-cent funding increase announced this year won’t be enough to reverse the damage done, Horwath said.<\/p>\n
During Horwath’s roundtable discussion with community members, at Sarnia’s Strangway Centre, the provincial local health integration network system was criticized and called a shield for the government when it comes to assigning blame for healthcare cuts, the provincial party leader said.<\/p>\n
Community care access centres were also a target, she said, as was the practice of moving services out of hospital and into community clinics.<\/p>\n
That’s a move toward privatization, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople still access the service through the public system in terms of the cost, but the actual money isn’t going to a public system that has public oversight,\u201d she said. \u201cThe money from the OHIP system is then going into the hands of private operators and that is privatization of our health-care system, which is not acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarnia is one of several communities Horwath is visiting on a planned tour after calling for mandatory minimum hospital funding Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we make these kinds of policy announcements, we tend to make sure that people hear them all across the province,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sarnia-Lambton Health Coalition president Shirley Roebuck was beside Horwath Wednesday in Toronto, telling about her own experiences as a registered nurse and some of the concerns she’s heard from folks in the Sarnia-Lambton area.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s very gratifying that Ms. Horwath made time to come down to Sarnia-Lambton,\u201d Roebuck said Friday. \u201cThis proves to me that the Queen’s Park event wasn’t just candy or candy floss, if you will, but is a true campaign that the NDP are going to start to save public health care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Patients and health-care workers are suffering, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur healthcare system is terribly broken and if it doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be probably relaunched.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Ontario Health Coalition is planning a voluntary referendum May 28, asking people to answer whether or not they support funding cuts to hospitals, Roebuck said.<\/p>\n
Hopes are to use its results to influence reform.<\/p>\n
Location details are expected later this month, Roebuck said.<\/p>\n