Ontario's official opposition health critic said any plan by the Ontario government to move towards health privatization would be a disaster.
Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas was responding to news reports out of Toronto Wednesday where Health Minister Sylvia Jones suggested that health care privatization is an option on the table for dealing with the staffing crisis that has shut down emergency rooms in some parts of the province.
Under questioning from reporters about whether private health care might occur in Ontario, Jones replied that "all options are on the table."
As Ontario's official opposition health critic, Gélinas said she was horrified at the thought.
“Privatizing health care would be a disaster for people’s health,” she said.
“It would mean losing nurses, doctors and PSWs leaving the public system to work privately, making the health care crisis even worse. It could mean that people are forced to pay out of pocket, or wait longer for care.
“The health care crisis we are in is due to gross underfunding and cuts by the Conservative government and the Liberals before them," she added.
"The way to fix it is for the Ford government to finally answer the pleas of overworked and burnt out health care workers, health experts and patients — and invest in recruiting, returning, retaining and respecting health care workers," said Gélinas.
She added that New Democrats are now deeply concerned that the reason this Conservative government is refusing to act on the health care crisis is because they’d rather just privatize health care service.
“The NDP will never stop working for robust public health care. This means fixing the compounding crises of long waits, rolling closures of entire hospital departments and hallway medicine with solutions including repealing Bill 124, increasing mental health support for health care workers, protecting health care workers against violence and expediting the accreditation of tens of thousands of internationally trained doctors and nurses.”
