CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to an article about the province expanding surgeries at private facilities, published Jan. 13.
1. “Premier Doug Ford said earlier this week the move is meant to address growing backlog, and patients will not have to pay out of pocket for them.”
Whose government caused the growing backlog of delayed surgeries in the province? Who will pay to build, equip and staff these new private, for-profit facilities? How will they be regulated and who will be awarded those licences? How long will this take?
2. “Ontario will perform thousands more surgeries in private facilities.”
Where is Mr. Ford going to find all the extra doctors, medical and support staff needed to alleviate this backlog, considering that the wait times are still increasing? Will these private facilities attract staff and medical practitioners from our public health facilities? When the backlog is caught up, what then now that we have this extra unused capacity? Will we see further cutbacks to our publicly funded health system in favour of privately run, for-profit clinics?
3. “The sources — who were not authorized to speak ahead of an announcement …”
Do you suppose that this leaked announcement came from those within the Ford government who see first-hand the slipshod, poorly thought-out policies of this provincial government? These sources say the province will expand existing independent health facilities’ capacities in its first of two phases of surgical health-care reform. How many phases before our public health-care system is decimated?
I hope that the citizens of Ontario will wake up, ask your MPPs these questions and hold them accountable for restoring our public health-care system.
Bob Rawson
Collingwood
