Dear Editor:
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his wealthy supporters have been pushing hard to profit from our supposedly-public health care system, just as Mike Harris did the last time the PCs were in power in Ontario.
Their goal is take their profit from money that should be going into patient care, not into shareholders’ dividends. Harris himself profits handsomely from his directorships on for-profit long-term care homes.
When emergency room wait times stretch to 10 to 20 hours for attention from a doctor, as happens frequently at Guelph General Hospital, it hurts everyone: the patient, the family and the medical staff.
Mr. Ford and his party have reduced our public health system’s ability to function to the point where it has broken down so badly that they think they can invite their wealthy investors in to feed off the carcass with impunity.
Our hospital CEOs, with the support of our heroic medical staff and ordinary people, must push back against this dismantling of our public system.
Our hospitals should be funded for re-tooling too, in order to provide the “efficiencies” that Ford is saying privatization will give us. Unfortunately, the taxpayers funds that could do that will end up in the hands of wealthy private investors.
Stop this madness before it is too late to save the patient, our public health care system.
Joan Hug-Valeriote,
Guelph