The Ontario Health Coalition has condemned what it calls a ‘gross misuse’ of taxpayer dollars after the province announced a major shift toward privatizing core hospital services<\/p>\n
TORONTO \u2013 Ontario\u2019s public hospitals have been pushed into deficit and ordered to find cuts while the Ford government shunts hundreds of millions of public dollars away from them to for-profit clinics, the Ontario Health Coalition warned yesterday on the heels of the province\u2019s announcement of plans to privatize thousands of orthopedic surgeries.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have existing operating rooms sitting unused in our local public hospitals because the Ford government refuses to fund them,\u201d said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, the Ford government is threatening local public hospitals and demanding cuts. Yet, at the same time, the sky is the limit when it comes to private clinics.\u201d<\/p>\n
The coalition notes that the Ford government has been paying 20 per cent\u00a0more for each surgery in private cataract clinics and more than 200 per cent\u00a0more per surgery to the private hospital for which their former health minister became a lobbyist.\u00a0The coalition is planning province wide protests to demand the Ford government restore our public funding to our public hospitals and stop their privatization scheme.<\/p>\n
Mehra noted that the provincial government delayed increasing surgeries in public hospitals where there is all kinds of existing under-used OR time, instead opting to slow everything down by holding an entire bidding process to invite private corporations to privatize surgeries. Patients have had to wait while the bidding process was done, proposals reviewed, corporations chosen, and now while they set up the capacity to do the operations. All this is unnecessary but for the choice of the Ford government to privatize.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s get this absolutely clear. The Ford government\u2019s hospital privatization plan is not about wait times, it is about giving public money to private and for-profit corporations to privatize our health care,\u201d\u00a0Mehra warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this announcement, the Ford government is shifting more than a hundred million dollars in public money away from our public hospitals\u2019 underused operating rooms. It is a gross misuse of public funds. This government has no mandate whatsoever to dismantle and privatize the core services of our public hospitals.\u201d
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