This morning (October 8, 2024), if you happen to see a 15 foot Trojan horse in front of Northumberland Hills Hospital, you don’t need to drop-in to get your eyes tested.
It’s part of CUPE’s Ontario Council of Hospital Unions province wide tour.
Secretary treasurer Sharon Richer explains.
The Trojan horse is a reference to Greek mythology, “(it) represents a gift, which, if accepted, threatens the recipient,” said Michael Hurley, president of OCHU-CUPE. “The false promise here is that privatizing surgeries is a solution to long waits. In fact, privatization redirects money and staff from public hospitals to private, for-profit clinics. As a result, wait-times in the public system get longer as staff shortages lead to service closures. Meanwhile, these private clinics charge out-of-pocket costs, which are unaffordable for most people. Ultimately, they will reduce access based on need, lengthen wait times and weaken our public hospital system.”
Richer agrees that privatization is only benefitting private clinics.
Richer says they’ll be touring Ontario hospitals with the Trojan horse over the coming weeks to raise awareness of the issues surrounding privatization.
“Private for-profit clinics and hospitals are up to two to three times more expensive than public hospitals. The Ford government is taking our public tax funding for health care away from our local hospitals to give it to more costly for-profit clinics,” said Natalie Mehra, the executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “Even worse, for-profit clinics threaten public medicare and cause hardship for patients, charging the elderly on pensions thousands of dollars unlawfully for needed surgeries and manipulating them to pay for unnecessary add-ons.”
According to Richer, they will be voicing their concerns over privatization which includes overcharging at private clinics.
They’ll be in front of Northumberland Hills Hospital this morning from 11:30 am.
(Written by: Joseph Goden)
