NDP MPP Sandy Shaw hosting healthcare townhall to save Ontario's public healthcare
Provincial governments should be investing in housing, education, food and comprehensive universal healthcare which are fundamental to a strengths-based approach focused on prevention.
Photo: Ontario Health Coalition lawnsign Credit: Doreen Nicoll
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “The right to health for all people means that everyone should have access to the health services they need, when and where they need them, without suffering financial hardship. No one should get sick and die just because they are poor, or because they cannot access the health services they need.”
Some readers may not remember what it was like to live in Canada before Scottish-Canadian NDP leader Tommy Douglas saw his dream of a universal healthcare become a reality.
Things were not great to say the least. I know of one family whose young child had asthma. After the doctor performed a tracheotomy on the kitchen table the child was hospitalized.
That family had nine other kids, so they sure didn’t have money to cover hospital bills. Instead, a sister-in-law, who was a nurse, stepped up to work extra shifts until the debt was paid off.
Don’t believe me? Well, that’s alright because the Ontario Coalition of Senior Citizens’ Organizations collected the lived experiences of folks from across Canada and those truths were edited by Helen Heeney and bound into a book called, Life Before Medicare: Canadian Experiences.
This book lays bare just how bad it was in the ‘good old days’ when we had to pay for healthcare. Folks went without treatments and often died simply because they didn’t have the money for doctor, medical and prescription bills.
An experience described in Life Before Medicare that may haunt you, as it does me, is a woman retelling what life was like living on a Saskatchewan farm after her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Because the mother knew that cancer treatment and pain medication would bankrupt her family, she went without. To shield them from their mother’s suffering, the kids were sent out to the fields. But even in the fields, the kids still heard their mother’s screams of pain. No one should have to endure such agony and trauma.
Today, Doug Ford and the “good old boys” in conservative party are in the process of forcing Ontarians back to those “good old days” when those with money get access to doctors, hospitals, treatments and medications while those without money are denied these essential services.
Well, I’m not going back there and I’m not going down without a good old fight!
So, I invite everyone to join me Sunday, September 8th at 2 pm. at the Westdale Theatre for Profits Over Patients: The True Cost of Privatization – the FREE town hall hosted by Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas NDP MPP Sandy Shaw.
A community screening of Meeting Human Needs: The fight to protect Saskatchewan’s Public Services (19 mins.) and The Myth of Canadian Health Care|Hippocrates: a Guide to Treating healthcare Workers (36 mins.) will be followed by discussions exploring what happens when profit drives decisions and what can be done to protect universal healthcare.
Meeting Human Needs lays bare the quiet privatization of Saskatchewan’s Crown Corporations using the outright sale of a public asset or service, leasing public assets to the private sector and employing the most deceptive form of privatization, public-private-partnerships (P3s) which only work for shareholders who are guaranteed returns.
It’s a myth that private corporations can fill public service gaps because when there is no profit, private companies simply cut services and folks are left without any other options.
The Myth of Canadian Healthcare, details the decimation of Alberta’s healthcare system and its war on doctors. Under Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) healthcare is for sale and two-tier healthcare is becoming the norm. This one is particularly important, because Ford is using Alberta’s playbook to play us right here in Ontario.
Pre-recorded interviews with Canadian Doctors for Medicare – Dr Melanie Bechard, Dr. Bernard Ho and Dr. Danyaal Raza will be followed by a panel discussion with Kieran Fong, documentary filmmaker and journalist based in Alberta and CUPE Ontario’s regional vice-president, Michael Hurley.
Fong will focus on provincial priorities including an update on what’s happening in Alberta and the role provincial governments play in exacerbating the healthcare crisis. Hurley will tackle the effects of healthcare cuts and privatization on workers, patients and taxpayers as well as the steps needed to fight back.
Be sure to bring questions to submit to organizers so they can be answered by Fong, Hurley and Shaw.
The sense of entitlement runs deep in conservative governments and amongst many folks who can afford private healthcare.
Well, I want to remind those folks that you may be able to afford private healthcare today, but your kids and your grandkids will not.
Instead of privatizing healthcare, provincial governments should be ensuring the social determinants of health like housing, education, food and comprehensive universal healthcare form the basis of a strengths-based approach focused on wellness, resilience and prevention.
I’m up for the fight! Are you?
Pre-register for the FREE event: Profits Over Patients: The True cost of Privatization
Sunday September 8th from 2 to 4:30 pm. at The Westdale Theater 1014 King St W, Hamilton, ON L8S 1L4
A version of this article first appeared on rabble.ca.
Thanks to everyone who read today’s article. With your continued support, a little Nicoll can make a lot of change.
My first child was born in 1964, before ON health care; it cost the equivalent of two weeks wages. By 1966 premiums, which fortunately, our employer covered, my second child’s birth & care were covered.
I lived a year in Australia with a two tier system. Some friends were working an extra part time job to cover their premiums for the top tier healthcare! The reason is obvious.
In the US , I was told, “you can get whatever care you need quickly; there are no line ups!”
For those who have money, that works.
It will cost taxpayers more if profit has to be covered instead of going to care.
Jane Philpots new book emphasizes the need for all levels of government to work together to establish ‘health hubs’, where teams of medical practitioners provide primary care.