Monday afternoon Norah Beatty of the Grey Bruce County Health Coalition made a deputation to the council of the Municipality of Meaford (full text below). Later in its meeting, after a brief discussion, the council unanimously passed the following motion:
"The Council of the Municipality of Meaford, recommends that the government reconsider its proposal to create private for profit hospitals and clinics and rescind Bill 60, and that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Health, and our MPP Rick Byers, and The Town of Blue Mountains.
Good afternoon Mayor Kentner, Deputy Mayor Keaveny, Councillors, Staff and public attendees. recommends that the government reconsider its proposal to create private for profit hospitals and clinics and rescind Bill 60.
I am here today because my grandfather leafletted on the prairies with Tommy Douglas’ campaign for public health insurance. I am also here because my father was a railroad engineer and in his later career was the Canadian Chairman of the United Transportation Union. About 25 years ago he said to me, “If you kids don’t stand up and fight like me and your grandfather’s generation, you are going to lose everything that we fought for and you have enjoyed.” Well, I am not a kid anymore but as I have watched our current government bring about destructive changes, in so many areas, his plans to privatize our public health care and in particular the threat those changes pose to our small, rural hospitals, compelled me to fight back.
So I started the Grey Bruce County Health Coalition, affiliated with the Ontario Health Coalition and their province wide campaign to stop the Ford govt. from removing 50% of surgeries and diagnostics from public hospitals. The govt. is funding community clinics but that is their euphemism for private hospital.
The OHC has fought to maintain public healthcare for over 40 years. It is a grassroots, non partisan organization which has held successful campaigns against privatization moves by ALL political parties. This time it is the current Conservative plans that are so abhorrent and go further then any other government. Indeed, provinces such as Que. and B.C. are currently pulling back on their experiments with privatization. Many international and Canadian studies, and a recently failed legal challenge by Cambie Surgeries Corp. to the BC supreme Court, have proven the negative results of privatization: costs to patients and the government increase, staff shortages in public hospitals increase, poorer patient outcomes, longer public hospital wait lists and contraventions of the 1985 Canada Health Act such as over billing, double billing, upselling. The Canada Health Act states health care is to be provided based on need - no matter where you live, and no matter how rich or poor you are and no patient can be charged for medically needed hospital and physician care. This Act is like a Canadian patients’ bill of rights.
Very quickly I joined forces with my Co-chair, Brenda Scott. Brenda had already been organizing and leading the Chesley area in protesting their Hospital’s frequent ER closures. After a two month closure last Fall, since Dec. their ER is open only 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. There have been many ER closures, across the province, due to staff shortages and under funding. The most recent permanent closure is Minden Hospital ER. That small community was given only 6 weeks notice of the closure on June 1 and no consultation with any local stakeholders took place, including the Town Council. Will that be our fate?
Brenda held a Town Hall, in early April, at which our MPP Rick Byers, spoke and pledged to support his constituents. The community circulated a petition, which to date, Mr. Byers, despite repeated requests, has not responded to nor presented to the legislature. Last week he voted in favour of Bill 60. His allegiance is clearly to the Progressive Conservative caucus.
Bill 60 removes the requirement that the director of a private clinic has to be a member of the Ministry of Health. Therefore, anyone such as a business owner or corporation, can be appointed director and there is no financial accountability because they are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Clinics will not be subject to transparency as there is no requirement to list new clinics. This opens up huge possible conflicts of interest and possible corruption as “clinics” are not subject to any public disclosure or public reporting. Finally, Bill 60 deregulates a large range of health care staff not only in private clinics but also in other parts of health care. There are no details and existing Colleges and training facilities have not been consulted about what the specific licensing and other regulation changes will be. Who will be qualified to dispense narcotics, do surgeries, be Medical Directors in long-term care homes, assess patients and residents, bill OHIP, restrain a resident in a long term care home or operate an x ray machine have been deregulated.
Together, with many volunteers who share our deepening concern, we are conducting the OHC’s opinion poll, on May, 26 & 27. We have to insist that democracy matters and want to give regular Ontarians, of every walk of life, in every community, an opportunity to have a say. Last Sat. I conducted the first poll in Grey County. It was inspiring to see 49 seniors at Central Place Retirement Community vote with their hearts and guided by their lived experience. The ballot question is straightforward: Do you want our public hospital services to be privatized to for-profit hospitals and clinics?” Yes or No. There is an option to vote online now.
The campaign goal is to garner 1 million No votes so that enough political pressure can be put on the Ford government to force them to change direction. We expected Bill 60, euphemistically called, “ Your Health Act” to pass. However, that is not the end of our campaign. We are just beginning. The public’s outrage is growing. After all, the majority in our provincial legislature was achieved with only 18% of the eligible voting public. Ford has chosen to see his majority as a mandate to bring in changes which he never presented to the public. In fact, in the two months leading up to the election, Ministry representatives followed OHC staff around the province. OHC were warning Towns about govt. plans to privatize while Min. reps told local press that they were not going to increase the privatization of hospitals. Ford’s, “You will only pay with your OHIP card.” sounds like, “I won’t touch the Greenbelt.” There is ample proof that where private hospitals operate you do pay with your credit card. An article in the Breach questions, if the only people who benefit from handing over vital services to private for-profit entities, are for-profit companies it begs the question, “is that why this policy is being followed?”
Bill 60 will disproportionately affect small, rural hospitals. Most of the surgeries in these hospitals are the so called easier surgeries, such as colonoscopies or cataract surgery. Lower volume in a small hospital raises the question as to whether or not that hospital is needed or cost effective. Meaford’s lab service has already been cut to half days. Colonoscopies are scheduled to be done elsewhere. Staff shortages exist but are an issue manufactured by the government’s refusal to address work conditions and restrictive wage law Bill 124.
Meaford hospital is a designated centre for cataract surgery. However, will patients be directed to the new for profit cataract hospital, scheduled to open, in the Fall, in Waterloo? Perhaps our hospital will be seen as, “not busy enough” or too costly to keep open when other large, urban options exist and the government has a contract with a for profit entity. If our hospital is rumoured to close or indeed closes will people want to move here and will doctors want to practice here? We already have a serious shortage. I admit that this is conjecture but it is entirely feasible given the belief system of this government - which is - business/profit first, care and community second.
There are better solutions. Right now OR’s in all public hospitals are underfunded and, therefore, operate at only 1/3 to 1/2 their capacity. A video by Dr. Warner from Toronto, explains that if the Government funded 50 public hospitals to operate their OR’s for 2 more hours a day, opened permanently closed OR’s and funded some weekend OR’s, the public system could clear the cataract backlog surgery in 15 weeks. This is much faster, more sensible and less costly option then spending tax payer $ to build duplicate OR’s or pay businesses that are using public infrastructure after hours and on weekends. They have been doing this at the Ottawa Riverside Hospital since Feb. 2023. Privatization is a government choice not a necessity. Directing funds to public hospitals is the answer to ending the current crisis.
Rigorous studies have proven that results are poorer in private clinics. They have significantly higher death rates, particularly dialysis clinics. For-profit colonoscopy clinics have more missed cancers. Furthermore, if a patient has a complication during a procedure at a private hospital they are transferred, by ambulance, to a public hospital, at risk to the patient and putting extra burdens on the under funded public system. The public hospital does not have access to the patient’s file and the private business is not held accountable. No surgery is “easy” and without risk.
Over the last decades, various government decisions, in particular this government’s actions, have created the current crisis and a turning point. If we lose our public hospital services we will not get them back. A two tier system of health care will become even more entrenched. The population will be faced with higher costs, poorer medical outcomes, longer waits and less funding and resources for all hospitals but small rural hospitals in particular.
Communities, especially rural areas, have worked for 100 years or more to volunteer, fund raise, and support their local hospital. It is their hospital not the governments to sell for profits. Our public medicare system is a reflection of our collective values: equity, universality, healthcare as a human right, compassion for all and excellence in care. It should not become a business enterprise that makes money for the few while sacrificing our values and in the process make people more vulnerable, poorer and less healthy.
Full motion:
Resolution Whereas, hundreds of communities across the province have spent decades building and supporting local, public non-profit hospitals and services; and
Whereas, many communities in northern Ontario are hundreds of kilometres apart; and
Whereas, residents of these communities rely on their public community hospitals for surgeries and medical care; and
Whereas, the Ontario government is planning, through Bill 60, to create private for profit hospitals and clinics throughout the province; and
Whereas, the province, through Bill 60, plans to take thousands of surgeries and diagnostics tests out of our local public hospitals and offer those services to the private for-profit hospitals and clinics; and
Whereas, Bill 60 will draw doctors and nurses from the small community hospitals, resulting in the possible closure of those small public community hospitals forcing residents to travel hundreds of kilometres for treatment; and
NOW THEREFORE the Council of the Municipality of Meaford, recommends that the government reconsider its proposal to create private for profit hospitals and clinics and rescind Bill 60. and
FURTHER THEREFORE, that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Health, and our MPP Rick Byers, and The Town of Blue Mountains.
