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'Rest assured,' area MPP says people will have access to public health care

'The answer is no. It is no today. And it will be no tomorrow. And it will be no the day after that,' Barrie-Innisfil MPP says after leaked draft legislation reveals possible sweeping changes toward privatization

Despite leaked draft legislation showing a drastically overhauled health-care system and what some believe could be the privatization of certain services, area MPP Andrea Khanjin says her constituents should not fret. 

The Barrie-Innisfil MPP tells CollingwoodToday that the public health-care system will not be slashed in favour of privatization. 

"Ontarians care whether they will have to pay for health-care services, or whether those with means can pay to skip the line," Khanjin said. "The answer is no. It is no today. And it will be no tomorrow. And it will be no the day after that. Rest assured that under our government, Ontarians will continue to have access to reliable public health care through OHIP." 

The document suggests the province is also looking into making major changes to the local health integration network (LHIN), which the Liberals implemented in 2007, with the creation of a "super-agency" to oversee the health-care system alongside the minister.

The leaked draft legislation includes provisions to cut the number of LHINs from 14 down to five. The LHINs oversee nearly $30 billion in annual operating funding funnelled from the health ministry to hospitals, long-term care homes and community health centres. 

Patty Coates, secretary-treasurer on the Ontario Federation of Labour and a board member with the Ontario Health Coalition, said she expects the PC government to "spin it" and say that it's about efficiencies, but she believes privatization of the ever-growing long-term care sector, in particular, is clearly the goal. 

"We fear that the Ford government is poised to privatize the new long-term care capacity and this is not in the public interest," she said recently while presenting the coalition's report on the rise of violence in long-term care homes, which are under-staffed and have more residents displaying aggressive behaviours. 

Coates also says the PC government under Mike Harris, several years ago, closed chronic care beds "by the thousands, placing them in long-term care beds," which has strained the system.

But now there are more than 30,000 seniors on wait lists and even more people will be moving into long-term care in the coming years. 

Khanjin said the PC government is looking for a solution across the board. 

"It’s clear that the previous (Liberal) government left a fractured health-care system that isn’t working for the people of Ontario and we’re working to fix it," Khanjin told CollingwoodToday. "Our government is consulting and listening to the professionals who work on the front lines of our health-care system, including our doctors, nurses and other health-care providers, as well as patients.

"We were elected to put the patient at the centre of a sustainable health-care system built for the future, and we will create a system that works for the people of Ontario," the MPP added.  

Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey did not respond to a request for comment. 

The state of long-term care, in particular, has been in the spotlight recently following a report from the Ontario Health Coalition, which says now is the time to invest in long-term care and more beds for seniors. Their evidence-based models indicate the investments needed in health care to handle the ageing population are "incremental and manageable."

"The evidence lays to waste any rhetorical attempts to paint health care as an insatiable 'Pac-Man' eating up the budget, an image created by pro-privatization forces for their own benefit," the report says. "While there is not the unbridled crisis that the public has been led to believe, nevertheless, our health-care system urgently needs to catch up on planning for the greying of our population."

The report also adds that people "have never been given an informed choice."

Khanjin says the provincial government remains focused on providing a "strong and sustainable" health-care system "that puts the needs of Ontario's patients first. Our plan will improve the health system so that people have access to faster, better co-ordinated public health care where they need it, when they need it," she added. 

While the PCs have passed off the leaked document as simply draft legislation, some, like Coates, believe otherwise. If the leaked document indicates the government's possible motives, she said it will make it much harder for people to receive care. 

"It will be at the mercy of our not-for-profit care system," she said. "We rely on our medicare system. It is the basis of what Canada is and what Ontario is. ... We need a plan for better publicly funded health care.

"I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in an Ontario where some have access to good medical care and others don't," Coates added. "That's what happens in the States.

"I'm with the labour movement and we're not going to stand by and let this happen," she said. "We're going to make sure Ontarians have the health care that they need, when they need it and where they need it, from a well-funded, accessible, public health-care system, because that's what each and every one of us deserves."

To read the draft legislation, click here

-- With files from Sudbury.com