Numerous health coalitions across the country recently put out a joint statement on our nation's healthcare status, calling on federal and provincial governments to do more.
Ontario Health Coalition Executive Director Natalie Mehra says the health coalitions are asking for the government to stop cuts to public services and health for things like military spending. She also says that another major economic issue is threatening our healthcare landscape.
"Some governments, particularly Ontario and Alberta, are forging ahead with just runaway privatization. Really unprecedented privatization, all of which costs more, significantly more, taking money and staff out of our local public hospitals," Mehra stressed. "We now have complaints of hundreds of patients who have been charged hundreds to thousands of dollars in private for-profit cataract surgery clinics. Those charges are illegal, many of them. You can not require that a patient pay for any medically necessary surgery or diagnostic test. It's damaging to public healthcare, and it's taking away from our hospitals (in Ontario) that are, already, funded at the lowest rate in Canada and have had very serious closures and problems providing services that communities need."
Mehra says the healthcare coalitions want the federal government to stop spending on things like militarization to ensure healthcare is a priority and that privatization does not become the future.
Another issue that the joint statement addresses is emergency department closures. Mehra points to the Grey-Bruce area, where she says the closure of emergency departments and removal of beds in places like Chesley and Durham cannot continue, and the health coalitions want a standard set that says hospitals can't close down EDs.
"Our communities have built our local hospitals over a century, it took a century to build them up. Communities fundraise and literally build their local hospitals to have services close to home. It is not keeping with the priorities or values of any Ontarian, to have EDs closing or beds lost," Mehra said sharply. "When patients are redirected away from the Chesley or Durham hospitals and sent to Walkerton or Hanover or other communities, those other communities have to take a bigger patient load than they are funded for, or have the staff resources for."
Mehra adds this current Ford government in Ontario is getting pressure regarding the current state of healthcare, and it still doesn't seem to be getting the message.
"This government has proved completely intractable on it, they are not moving on it even under public pressure. That is a real problem because, in fact, as I said, Ontario funds its hospitals at the lowest rate of any province in the country. That's a political choice, not a necessity," Mehra pointed out.
On top of regular hospital services diminishing, Mehra says things like mental health and addictions services are suffering, too, and being wildly underfunded.
"Access to mental health and addictions services are really a big problem and again, the more and more of what we see are the public services such as they existed, and they were in adequate, shutting down, and for-profit companies moving in, and charging people a lot of money for access to those services. Nationally, we've called for mental health and addictions services to be covered under the Canada Health Act and for a kind of robust approach to restoring and improving access to mental health and addictions services," said Mehra.
In terms of what the public can do, Mehra says she and all the other healthcare coalition leaders are encouraging people to call and email and tell local MPs and MPPs that the current state of healthcare affairs isn't good enough.
"For instance, in Grey Bruce, there's a Conservative MPP (Paul Vickers, with Conservative Lisa Thompson representing Huron-Bruce), he's a member of this government that has made the decisions to do this. He has to feel the public pressure," Mehra explained. "I'm obviously not saying people need to be rude or anything, but they have to call him up and say 'This is not acceptable. You have to stand up for your local hospitals, the emergency departments have to be open. The inpatient beds in Durham have to be re-opened. These are hundred year old institutions and they've survived every government up until yours. Stop this, it is not what we voted for.'"
She says that could make a big difference if more and more people raise their voices.
"If they hear it from everyone they will stop it. But the fact is they've gotten re-elected despite the fact that the public doesn't support these things. So they're not really being held accountable in any way," Mehra concluded.
Mehra points out that the nation-wide health coalitions are non-partisan and do not align themselves with any political party, and are ready to pressure any leaders to do better when it comes to healthcare.
Doug Ford recently hosted Prime Minister Mark Carney and Ford's provincial and territorial counterparts in Huntsville for a meeting from July 21-23. Healthcare advocacy groups from around the country came together at Hidden Valley Resort just down the road from Deerhurst for a "Shadow Summit." It included workshops and speeches on a variety of related topics. There was also a Car Cavalcade through Huntsville, stopping enroute for rallies that called attention to the healthcare crisis.
The Grey Bruce Health Coalition played a big part on the planning committee for the gathering in Huntsville.
For more information, you can contact contact@greybrucehc.ca or visit https://www.greybrucehc.ca/.