Left unchallenged, “create a crisis and privatize” provincial schemes will destroy public health care: Health Coalition called on Trudeau to step up and show real leadership
Retrieved on:
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Policy, Ontario Health Coalition, Diabetes, Federation, Patient, Privatization, Medicare, Cancer, Magnetic resonance imaging, Degenerative disease, Vaccine, Coalition, MRI, Accreditation, COVID, Obesity, PR, PPE, Law of Canada, 30 Years After, COPD, Death, Long-term care, Pressure, Comprehension, Supreme court, Health insurance, Hospital
“Already existing private for-profit clinics across Canada routinely extra-bill patients thousands of dollars, often illegally. The private clinics also charge patients hundreds or thousands of dollars for extra medically unnecessary add-ons. Moreover, private clinics take scarce staff out of public hospitals to serve lighter-care profitable patients. They leave behind the unprofitable patients – those with more complex care needs like diabetes and COPD, obesity, heart diseases and cancer -- to public hospitals with less funding and staffing to provide for them. This, in the context of unprecedented staffing shortages will devastate already overstretched local public hospitals,” warned Ms. Mehra.
Key Points:
- Today, the Coalition warned that the unprecedented health care crisis is, in significant part, due to our governments cutting and privatizing public hospital services beyond all reason and evidence.
- No province has cut its public hospitals more radically than Ontario, but all of Canada ranks very low among our peer nations.
- Canadians expect our federal government to stand up for the foundational principles of our public health care system.
- Patients in Quebec forced the federal government to pressure Quebec to stop extra-billing for a period in their private clinics.