Chapman: The Conservatives’ privatization of our public health care needs to be stopped in its tracks

KITCHENER - Debbie Chapman, the Ontario NDP candidate for the upcoming by-election in Kitchener Centre, issued a statement following revelations that Doug Ford and the Conservatives are paying for-profits clinics more than public hospitals for the same OHIP-covered surgeries:

“Doug Ford and the Conservatives have been starving the public health care system of critical funding and investments for five years. They have single-handedly manipulated this crisis to open the floodgates to privatization.

The health care system is not a place for corporate bottom lines and to help those at the very top make billions. Hard working people in Kitchener and across Ontario are struggling with the rising cost of living, and they don’t need their tax dollars going towards lining the pockets of CEOs.

I’m running to be the next MPP for Kitchener Centre to make the Official Opposition stronger so together we can stop Doug Ford’s privatization of our public health care system in its tracks.”

QUICK FACTS

• CBC’s report focused on the privately-owned Don Mills Surgical Unit, which was paid rates "noticeably" higher than the province provides hospitals for the same procedures.
• The for-profit clinic received premiums from the government, which in the case of cataracts were more than double what public hospitals received, and as many as three times more for knee arthroscopy.
• Don Mills Surgical Unit is part of Clearpoint Health Network, for whom former Conservative health minister Christine Elliott registered to lobby her previous colleagues. Her goals are to “engage the government in updating and increasing the base funding amount available to Clearpoint.”
• An investigation has also found that Doug Ford’s donors keep benefitting from the Conservatives’ health care privatization.