Ontarians warned to beware of Tories bearing gifts

Posted By Cassin, Joyce

Posted 3 years ago

John Tory's campaign promises to provide hospital services through public-private partnerships rather than the traditional publicly funded way have the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC), a network of more than 400 grassroots community organizations representing virtually all areas of Ontario, up in arms.

To get their point across, Louis Rodrigues, a Kingston health-care worker who took a leave to fight for the public health-care system, is travelling to many communities across the province with a 12-foot Trojan horse in tow, warning people of the dangers of an allegiance between the private and public health-care sectors.

"We have a really good health-care system," he said during a visit to Cobourg on Tuesday. "It's not perfect, but it can be fixed, but not through privatization."

The OHC's primary goal is to empower the members of constituent organizations to become actively engaged in the making of public policy on matters related to health care and healthy communities. The coalition supports preserving Canada's medicare system and the overall goal and policy of universal public health care.

The OHC likens the privatization of health care to the horse in the mythical Trojan War. The Greeks left the horse at the gates of the city of Troy, saying it was a gift. Unbeknownst to the Trojans, the horse was filled with warriors led by Odysseus. The city was conquered while celebrating its supposed victory over the Greeks.

"Today privatization of health care is presented by for-profit companies as a gift to our public system, but privatization will destroy public health care," Mr. Rodrigues said. "Private business will take their profits out of the system, and that will be detrimental to the system."

Mr. Rodrigues moved to Canada from Portugal as a youth and has been enjoying the Ontario health-care system since then. He has also worked in the health-care system for the past 35 years.

"I want my kids and grandchildren to have what I've had," he said. "This is something I believe in, and I believe we need to get it out to the public and make sure people understand."

He says that the private system tends to have a higher death rate than the public system, as for-profit operators skimp on the number of nurses in order to increase profits, putting patients at risk.

As there are no additional health-care professionals, having the private and public sectors competing for doctors, nurses and others will only hurt the public system, according to Mr. Rodrigues.

"If we open the doors to privatization, where will they come from? They'll come out of the existing system," he said. "What we need to do is train more health-care professionals, not make them compete for service."

He stated that while public hospitals and communities now offer incentives to attract doctors, they would fall short if forced to compete with the private sector.

"I've talked to thousands and thousands of people since starting my trip three weeks ago, and no one is saying they want private health care" Mr. Rodrigues said.

The road trip is planned for at least another month, at which time he anticipates going on the John Tory trail.

"Where (John Tory) goes, the horse will follow," he said. "We are hoping that people will begin asking questions and that the provincial leaders will have a public debate on the issue."

Members of the OHC include more than 50 local health coalitions in communities across the province. It is affiliated with the Canadian Health Coalition, providing provincial co-ordination of community-based health coalitions.

"On the October 10 provincial election, make your vote count," Mr. Rodrigues says. "Protect public non-profit healthcare for all Ontarians. Our system is not perfect, but we can fix it."