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<\/p>\n(April 23, 2019)<\/p>\n
By: Jim Moodie, The Sudbury Star<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, speaks to Sudbury Star reporter Mary Katherine Keown in Sudbury, Ont. on Friday May 11, 2018. She said Tuesday that Sudbury and Northern Ontario will suffer under the province’s proposed health mergers. John Lappa\/Sudbury Star\/Postmedia Network<\/span>\u00a0JOHN LAPPA\u00a0\/\u00a0JOHN LAPPA\/SUDBURY STAR<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n The pain of a provincial health-care shakeup could be particularly felt in Sudbury and the broader region, according to critics of the Ford initiative<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>Mergers for the North don<\/span>\u2019<\/span>t work,<\/span>\u201d\u00a0<\/span>said Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition.\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>The plan is take 1,800 health service providers \u2014 hospitals, long-term care, palliative care, air ambulance, laboratories, all of it \u2014 and merge them into giant conglomerates. That model of health care does not work for a widely dispersed population over a giant geographic area.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Mehra was speaking via media teleconference Tuesday, along with Ontario Nurses Association president Vicki McKenna, as part of a Health Action Day to protest cuts to the sector<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201c<\/span>This is like the Mike Harris era of restructuring, writ huge,<\/span>\u201d said Mehra. \u201c<\/span>It<\/span>\u2019<\/span>s the most radical restructuring this province has ever seen.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Tuesday<\/span>\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>actions included thousands of people donning Stop Health Privatization stickers and distributing leaflets to warn of more changes to come<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pretty pleased with the take-up,\u201d said Mehra. \u201cAt this point we can report accurately that more than 150,000 nurses, doctors, public health professionals, support workers, patient advocates and patient groups are wearing stickers warning of health-care privatization and asking the public to support public health care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n More than 100 hospitals and health-care facilities participated in the day of action, she added.<\/span><\/p>\n Mehra said her organization is concerned the new legislation allows for a major erosion of public medicare, with numerous services targeted for privatization.<\/span><\/p>\n Bill 74, enacted Thursday at Queen\u2019s Park, provides the Ford government with \u201cunprecedented powers to order the privatization of virtually any part of our health-care system,\u201d she warned.<\/span><\/p>\n Mehra said the government is cutting \u201chalf a billion dollars from OHIP services, cutting public health and restructuring to centralize it,\u201d as well as \u201ccutting and restructuring and privatizing land and air ambulance services.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Hospitals are also facing unsustainable budget constraints, she noted, with funding levels held below the rate of inflation.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe are hearing from thousands of chronic pain patients who are concerned they are going to lose access to the shots that keep them off opioids,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re hearing from parents of children with autism. We\u2019re hearing from people with Crohn\u2019s and colitis concerned about cuts to colonoscopies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fears are at an \u201call-time high\u201d across the province, she said, \u201cand we are extremely concerned that there are plans being made in the back rooms of Queen\u2019s Park to privatize significant parts of our health system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n McKenna, whose union represents more than 65,000 registered nurses and health-care professionals, said her members are concerned for their jobs and workloads, but above all \u201cfor the patients they care for.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She said Ontario is following a path that hasn\u2019t proven effective in other countries and provinces that have attempted similar reforms.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cJurisdictions that have gone under massive transformation like this have not fared well,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s the people who haven\u2019t fared well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Restructuring attempts in the United Kingdom and Australia, for instance, have failed to the extent that \u201cnow they are making a U-turn and coming back to what is a fully public system,\u201d McKenna noted.<\/span><\/p>\n The ONA president worries Ontarians aren\u2019t grasping the looming crisis in health care as keenly as they should because they are being \u201cdistracted by populist announcements,\u201d such as buck-a-beer and the ability to have tailgate parties.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThose are the things that are capturing the attention of the media,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m afraid the public services that people all depend upon won\u2019t be there when they need them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n McKenna acknowledged Sudbury acts as referral centre for the northeast and caters to \u201cthe most complex medical needs\u201d for the area.<\/span><\/p>\n It is the smaller, rural hospitals that are most at risk of losing services, or disappearing altogether, she said, but Health Sciences North will suffer, too.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re already full to capacity each and every day,\u201d she said. \u201cThe nurses I speak to tell me how burdened the hospital is, and last year there were significant cuts to nurses there. And we know, with this last budget, the government isn\u2019t funding our hospitals even up to inflationary rates.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n McKenna said a 4.5 per cent budget increase would be required for hospitals to simply \u201ckeep the lights on, doors open, and maintain staffing levels \u2014 and they didn\u2019t get that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She said she wants to see public dollars used wisely and efficiently, but hospitals have been \u201cstarved\u201d for far too long. \u201cAnd if they continue to underfund them, they cannot continue to operate. It\u2019s like destruction by design.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Public health is also taking a huge hit, with funding slashed by more than a quarter and health units to be trimmed from 35 to 10, Mehra pointed out.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat means the local public health units will be merged, and one big consortium of services for all of northeastern Ontario or all of Northern Ontario,\u201d she said. \u201cServices will be centralized, dramatically.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n