Information for and from Issues and Advocacy Committee
Kaarina Tulisalo, co-chair of Issues and Advocacy, forwarded this email from the Ontario Health Coalition. However, copying it meant active links were lost. Contact her if you are interested in this issue (ekt_86@hotmail.com).
From: OntarioHealthCoalition <ontariohealthcoalition-bounces@list.web.net> on behalf of Ontario Health Coalition via OntarioHealthCoalition <ontariohealthcoalition@list.web.net>
Sent: August 9, 2023 9:52 AM
To: ontariohealthcoalition@list.web.net <ontariohealthcoalition@list.web.net>
Subject: [OHC] Major Protest Sept. 25: Take action as though public health care is in danger. Because it is.
Mass protest graphic-2.jpg
We need to take action
as though our public health care
is in grave danger.
Because it is.
MAJOR PROTEST
OPENING DAY OF THE ONTARIO LEGISLATURE
Monday, September 25, 2023 at 12 Noon
TORONTO at Queen's Park outside the Main Legislative Building at 12 Noon
THUNDER BAY at Mini Queen's Park at South James St. at 12 Noon
DRYDEN outside MPP Greg Rickford's office, 439 Government St. at 11:30 a.m. CST (Dryden time)
ALGOMA outside the Sault Area Hospital at Lukenda Drive at 12 Noon
Please join the protest closest to you.
*The Ford government has set opening day on Yom Kippur. We will hold a second event on Sept. 26 at noon for people in the Jewish community who cannot attend on the 25th. Anyone who would like to volunteer to help with this event and/or attend it, can you please email us with the subject line: "Tues. Sept 26 protest".
Are you coming?
Let us know if you are joining on September 25.
Share this link with your friends & family.
Plan to carpool or register to get on one of the many buses!
This is critically important: Everyone is needed to build a mass protest on the opening day of the Legislature to stop the Ford government's privatization of our public hospitals.
Click here to sign up to attend/get on buses
The Ford government is privatizing our public hospitals to for-profit hospitals & clinics.
They are letting the for-profit clinics charge patients thousands of dollars.
They are closing small & local hospital emergency departments & urgent care.
They have underspent the health budget by $1.7 billion even while thousands of nurses, doctors & health professionals have left & our public operating rooms sit idle much of the time.
They’re spending hundreds of millions of public dollars privatizing our nurses & our hospital services.
They are giving new 30- year contacts & major expansions to the very worst for-profit long-term care corporations.
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Our public hospitals are just that. They are ours.
No one has a mandate to close or privatize them. If anything they should be more public...more democratic, with more resources to provide care, restored elected public hospital boards, restored local services, more responsive to our communities. If we lose our hospitals to for-profit companies it will be very difficult, if possible at all, to get them back. So, we fight for what is ours for generations to come.
It took our communities more than 100 years to build our local public hospitals & public health care.
We have spent years fundraising & volunteering to support our local public hospitals. Now the Ford government is planning to take thousands of surgeries & diagnostic tests out of our local public hospitals & privatize them to for-profit hospitals & clinics… unless we stop them.
It is a choice by the Ford government not to fund & open the under-used operating rooms we already have in our public hospitals.
We don’t need to privatize. Operating rooms in our public hospitals are closed evenings, weekends -- sometimes even permanently -- due to underfunding and understaffing. Resourcing our public hospitals to keep open our operating rooms and diagnostics would clear the backlog of patients waiting.
The Ford government’s hospital privatization plan is a “take away” from our local public hospitals.
For-profit hospitals & clinics take staff out of our local public hospitals making shortages worse. They also take only take the fast, easy, profitable patients. They leave the complicated surgeries, such as cancer care, and riskier patients (eg. those with diabetes, are overweight, have COPD/heart arrhythmias etc.) to our public hospitals with less funding & staff to provide care.
Health care shouldn't depend on how rich you are.
For-profit clinics & hospitals routinely charge patients thousands of dollars on top of OHIP for needed surgeries & tests. This “extra-billing” is illegal under the Canada Health Act which requires care to be provided without charge based on medical need -- not how much money we have -- & which bans extra-billing. For-profit clinics also take profits by getting patients to pay for unneeded tests & extras. Their prices are very high - often up to five times higher than OHIP costs.
Ontario funds our public hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada.
The Ford government has underspent the health care budget by billions even while patients are waiting, our emergency departments & other vital services are closing, and our nurses & hospital staff are leaving by the thousands due to overwork, burnout & frustration. This follows years of underfunding. If the Ontario government funded our health care even to the average of Canada, they could resolve the crisis.
Because health care is about caring for people, not profit. Tell Doug Ford to:
Stop privatizing our public hospitals & other health care services,
Stop creating a crisis in our public hospitals by underfunding them, cutting and closing services, and trying to roll back wages of nurses, health professionals & support staff,
Expand the use of existing ORs in our public hospitals that are closed much of the time due to understaffing and underfunding, and
Expand capacity in our public hospitals & restore closed services
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Click here to sign up to attend/get on buses
Please mark off Monday September 25th on your calendar! We will look forward to seeing you there.
Ontario Health Coalition Team
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We are proud of the difference we make and we hope you are too. This work is only made possible by people who care like you. Please do become a member or donate. It matters!
If you can, please CLICK HERE to donate or become a member.
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