Roy Brady speaks outside MPP Jeff Leal’s constituency office yesterday. Still from CHEX-TV news report.
The Council of Canadians Peterborough-Kawarthas chapter – through the Peterborough Health Coalition – is taking action against against private for-profit health care clinics.
Council of Canadians Board member, chapter activist and Peterborough Health Coalition chairman Roy Brady says, “We’re challenging, again, for-profit clinics that the [Ontario] government is allowing to proliferate right across Ontario.”
The Peterborough Examiner reports, “In March, Brady said the coalition led a campaign to protest the [closing of outpatient services] hoping the Liberals would do their part in ensuring that hospital services transferred into community settings would be a not-for-profit status to allow accessibility for citizens across the board. …[Then] in July, the Peterborough coalition asked [Rural Affairs Minister and Peterborough MPP Jeff] Leal for periodic reports of progress he was making in changing the for-profit clinics into not-for-profit operations or by just getting rid of them all together. Brady said Leal agreed to do so and on Friday, he said he received a report from Leal’s office, which he was not happy with… ‘It’s inadequate, it’s not updated and it’s not what we requested.’ …[And so] members of the Peterborough Health Coalition and concerned citizens gathered outside Leal’s constituency office on Tuesday to voice their discontent about the issue.”
Brady adds, “I’m quite disappointed at our particular government, who are not only are they insisting that some of these clinics are not-for-profit but they won’t regulate anything and they have a history of not regulating anything, so they’ve just got to do their job.”
For a CHEX-TV report on the protest that includes an interview with Brady, please click here.
Natalie Mehra, the coordinator of the Ontario Health Coalition, has warned, “The Ontario government is already systematically closing down outpatient services: physiotherapy, labs, pain clinics, fertility clinics and so on. Their written plan is to close all outpatient services. They will go to private clinics. They now plan to cut as many surgeries and diagnostic tests from local public hospitals as possible, and contract them out to private clinics. …We are asking everyone to take one day to lend your voice to protect vital services that everyone in our communities need. Come out November 21 at noon at Queen’s Park Toronto.”
The Peterborough-Kawarthas chapter, the South Niagara chapter, Toronto-based health care campaigner Michael Butler and numerous other Council of Canadians supporters will be at that rally on Friday to call on the Ontario government to stop private clinics and save local hospitals.
Further reading
South Niagara chapter prepares for Nov. 21 health care rally in Toronto
