THUNDER BAY – Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government is stealthily privatizing ever-larger segments of health care, according to a provincewide coalition of activists.
To illustrate their point, the Ontario Health Coalition and the Ontario Council of Health Unions are touring a Trojan horse through Northwestern Ontario.
The large equine model made a stop in Thunder Bay on Tuesday afternoon, after a Monday itinerary that included Emo, Rainy River and Kenora. It will be in Geraldton and Chapleau on Wednesday.
As it expanded the private sector’s presence in health care, the Tory government repeatedly said Ontarians would never need anything more than their provincial health cards, Kevin Cook, first vice-president of the health-care unions council, said Tuesday in front of Thunder Bay’s “mini Queen’s Park.”
“We’re finding that’s not true … People are having to use their credit cards or their savings,” he said.
The Trojan horse has a place in Greek mythology. As the story goes, soldiers tricked the city-state of Troy into accepting a giant wooden horse as a gift, only to be besieged by soldiers who were hiding inside the horse.
“We’ve been fighting privatization of our hospitals for a number of years,” said Jules Tupker, chair of the Thunder Bay Health Coalition.
Premier Doug Ford is “trying to trick Ontarians,” Tupker said.
“He’s saying ‘No, no, no – this move to privatization is going to make things a lot better. It’s going to cut wait periods for operations. Everything is going to be better with privatized health care, and it’s gonna be cheaper.’
“And we know that’s not true.”
People are told private clinics are “faster and better, and it’s not true,” Tupker said.
Wait times for surgeries might be shorter, he said, but only for people who can afford to pay.
“We know that the private clinics are going to charge more, which is a violation of the Canada Health Act. They’re not allowed to do that and they’re violating the act.
“We’ve asked the federal government to look into that, because the Canada Health Act says you can’t charge more for medically necessary surgeries or interventions. These clinics are doing that.”
“It’s a scam that that the Conservatives are selling," said Tupker. "And people are buying it because they’re saying ‘Oh, if I can get my hip surgery done within three months or four months, then I will rather than wait for a year. I can pay the extra and I can do that.’”
Tupker says in volunteer work with an anti-poverty group he has seen people “saying they’re not going to be able to pay an extra $500 or $1,000 for cataract surgery or for other kinds of surgeries, and we’ve got evidence of (clinics charging) $10,000 extra for hip surgeries.
“A lot of people can afford it. People are saying ‘Oh, I can afford to pay an extra few bucks.’ But there’s so many people that can’t. And the inspections of private clinics are suspect, also.”
Rainy River Mayor Deborah Ewald saw the Trojan horse during its Monday stop in her town, and she shares the concern about privatization in health care.
“Where’s the money going to come for the people who can’t afford to pay?” she said Tuesday in a phone interview.
The regional Trojan horse tour comes as the Ontario Nurses’ Association launches a new series of TV, digital and print ads decrying what they say is underfunding and understaffing in the public health care system – and warning that Ford wants to continue privatizing health care.
“Nurses and health-care professionals are bravely speaking out in their own words in these new ads," association president Erin Ariss said in a news release Tuesday.
Ariss said shifting more public spending to the private sector “will make staffing shortages even worse and hurt access to timely, high-quality public health care for all Ontarians.”
