- by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Editor
The numbers speak for themselves. 9,889 of our neighbours in Grey and Bruce counties took the time over the past week to vote on the grassroots referendum question "Do you want our public hospital services to be privatized to for-profit hospitals and clinics?" 132 said yes and an overwhelming 9757 said "No".
On a spectacularly beautiful Sunday afternoon, four volunteers gathered indoors to count the ballots from 27 polling places in Owen Sound, Meaford, Rockford, Thornbury and Eugenia. Another three volunteers not previously associated with the referendum acted as scrutineers to verify the count. Those polling places had themselves been staffed by volunteers - at least 65 people were involved in that area distributing leaflets and being poll clerks.
Two local women - Norah Beatty in Grey County and Brenda Scott in Bruce County - created the Grey Bruce Health Coalition and undertook the voting project to protect their local hospitals and the services they provide. They ensured that Grey Bruce voices would be heard along with those at almost 1000 voting stations across the province in "a massive effort to force the Ford government to respect democratic process and input on their hospital privatization plans."
From a media release from the local coalition today :
"These percentages and numbers support the fact that an overwhelming majority of Ontarians do not want privatization of their health care services. They don’t want the public hospitals and services they have built and supported for many years to become for-profit facilities or closed. They fear that hospital equipment paid for through local fundraising efforts will be given or sold to private interests. They don’t support the idea of private clinics charging excessive extra fees for procedures formerly done in the public system.
The rationale the government gives for this switch to public health care is that there are not enough medical staff to operate public hospital facilities. Yet to a certain extent they have created that shortage with measures like Bill 124. Although declared unconstitutional by the courts, the government continues to appeal that decision rather than deal fairly with health care professionals.
The government claims that the current public system is overwhelmed and unable to provide the services needed. This claim is not supportable. Did you know that operating rooms sit idle in hospitals all across the province, often closing at 4 pm? The government has not spent all of the health care dollars they received from the federal government and many operating rooms have been closed due to a lack of funding. This crisis mentality has been created to support the notion that we must switch to private providers. Again, it is at attempt to manipulate public opinion with insupportable “facts”.
Whereas previously a contract with a private provider was for a maximum of 5 years, Bill 60 makes 5 years the minimum contract length and it can be much longer. The concern is that once we lose our public hospital services, we will not be able to get them back.
There is an issue of democracy here as well. In the lead up to the 2022 election Ontarians were not given the option to vote for or against the privatization of health care…they were not told this issue was on the table. In fact, when directly asked about this possibly, the current ruling party denied they had an intention to move to private health care. So many people voted for them not knowing it might mean losing their local hospital or their public health care. Now we have given Ontarians a first opportunity to actually vote on this question. Volunteers and organizers have met with opposition from large corporations who are moving into the private health care business themselves and from the government itself. But despite that opposition over 95% of those polled voted to support public health care.
In the Municipality of Arran Elderslie in Bruce County, responding to the cancellation of Emergency Department hours in Chesley, there was a second question on the ballot. “Do you want Chesley District Memorial Hospital to remain open as a public hospital with a full time 24/7 emergency department?”
Of those that voted in that area, 692 voted “Yes” to the question and there were 3 that voted “No”. This is again overwhelming support for the continuation of full time Emergency Services in that community.
We would like to thank everyone who participated in this historic grassroots process. To those who voted, thank you for coming out to support your community and to the volunteers who staffed the polls, thank you for your commitment to this democratic grassroots process.
On the 31 st of May, all of the ballots collected provincewide, including those from Grey Bruce, will be delivered to Queen’s Park where Ontario Health Coalition leadership will conduct a press conference revealing the total count for the province."
The Ontario Health Coalition is a collaboration of over 500 member organizations with a primary goal "to protect and improve our public health care system. We work to honour and strengthen the principles of the Canada Health Act. We are led by our shared commitment to core values of equality, democracy, social inclusion and social justice; and by the five principles of the Act: universality; comprehensiveness; portability; accessibility and public administration. We are a non-profit, non-partisan public interest activist coalition and network."
