.jpg;w=960)
When we require immediate access to health care or hospitalization, none of us want to be put on a wait list; what we need is access to good, timely health care. We know that is not the case because our health-care system is in total disarray and is broken.
In Ontario, the Ford government says the answer to solving this problem is to allow an additional private, for profit health care track. The government is allowing the establishment and building of new private hospitals, health clinics, and companies to provide vital health care services.
The fact is that this system exists to make a profit. How do they do this? The private sector will charge more for a procedure than the public system pays, and they will institute extra-billing costs to the patient.
We will now have two systems of health care – one for those who can pay, and one for the rest of us. Is this the legacy we want to leave our children and grandchildren?
Supporters of private payment care argue that it frees up resources and shortens wait lines in the public system. Research shows that this is not true. The majority of Canadians, who would continue to rely on a public system, would wait even longer for doctors, nurses and others who would be enticed to work fewer hours in the private system, and in one which has a more lucrative pay system.
With fewer health-care workers remaining in the public system, it’s no surprise that hallway medicine would worsen for those left behind.
Evidence from Australia, Germany, and Switzerland demonstrates that private payment increases wait times for the majority of patients who depend on publicly funded services and increases total system costs. (The Conversation, January 2019)
In 2019, the Alberta government allowed a significant expansion of for-profit, corporate health care and by 2022 Alberta had among the worst wait-time performance for priority procedures in the country (Parkland Institute, University of Alberta). Furthermore, the trend from 2019 to 2022 indicates that wait times for hip and knee replacements have worsened significantly, now being higher than the Canadian average.
On Nov. 6, Andrew Longhurst, a policy researcher from Simon Fraser University visited Sudbury and called on Premier Doug Ford to scrap the expansion of the for-profit health-care sector, which Longhurst believes comes at the expense of public hospitals.
“Longhurst said the Ontario government is setting out to use more privately-owned, for-profit businesses to carry out surgical procedures and diagnostic imaging procedures, such as MRIs and CT scans outside of hospitals. His 56-page report, At What Cost, is critical of the idea and said the Ontario Conservatives are playing with the numbers to make it seem that wait times are too long in some health care sectors and that more needs to be done to improve the delivery of health care to the people.” (Sudbury.com, Nov. 6)
The Ford Government is now on the brink of passing Bill 135, the Convenient Care at Home Act. This act will privatize all home and community care services. It also appears that many of the aspects of this bill will be moved into regulations, which means the cabinet can make changes without approval of the legislature.
Let’s be honest, successive governments have failed to deal with the issues in public health care — asking people to persevere and bear the pain for a long time doesn’t garner too many votes.
We must protect public health care and not allow some to profit from our health and negatively impact the majority of us for generations to come. The urgent issue at hand is how do we improve the public health system in the public interest, rather than financially starving and mismanaging public health care.
Allowing private payment care is an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem; and it is a bad idea.
Terry Martyn
Sudbury