Sault Star Chronicle: Public apathy toward privatized health is a killer

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It is the literal and figurative writing on the wall: “Due to the shortage of doctors, and after having exhausted all options, the North Shore Health Network will temporarily close the emergency department at the Thessalon site. from this Wednesday, May 24 at 8:00 a.m. and re-opening at 8:00 a.m. on May 26.

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If you don’t want to see more posts like this, be sure to vote in the citizens’ “referendum” on privatizing health care before the May 27 deadline. Don’t be one of those apathetic people who say it’s too late and your vote doesn’t matter, because politicians need to know that they won’t get our votes if they’re for privatization.

I think that’s absolute madness, especially in Canada, where we’re supposed to have universal health care. Show me a public service that was partially privatized and it improved the public version… I’m waiting.

Once they violate the healthcare system, they will come after education. I have teacher and Australian friends who have told me to be careful that the two-tier system does not gain ground in Canada. Private schools emptied the public system of the best teachers and the best students and left the public system in shambles. The same will happen in our healthcare system.

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It sickens me that amputation is recommended when a dose of antibiotics would do wonders. Donating thousands of surgeries and diagnostic tests to for-profit hospitals and clinics is amputation. The antibiotic would be to properly fund our community hospitals.

The closure of the ER in Thessalon shows us that we are already terribly understaffed, imagine if doctors and nurses had the opportunity to receive higher salaries and shorter working hours in private clinics. Then what ? We have already exhausted our healthcare workers throughout the pandemic. Can we really expect them to continue to work hard in our underfunded system once there is a comfortable local alternative?

We don’t need new clinics. We have a new hospital. In most cases, we don’t need new equipment, because if the hospital doesn’t have it, we help raise funds for it. We need more doctors and nurses, especially in the north, and that won’t help that.

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We have immigrants arriving daily who are doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and more, but the process is quite onerous to requalify here. Why not put some of the money from this private clinic into it? How about paying for more “seats” in medical school, especially at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, so that we can develop our solutions at home as well?

The voting page says Ontario has “the lowest funding of any province in the country and the fewest nurses per patient in Canada.”

The grass isn’t greener on the other side, the grass is greener where you water it. Vote no to privatization. Politicians seeking re-election will see that we are asking our government to fund our hospitals at the average for the rest of Canada. The estimate is that by doing so, “we would eliminate backlogs and waiting lists for surgeries and diagnostic tests at our local public hospitals.”

Vote online at https://publichospitalvote.ca/vote or in the community on Friday May 26 and Saturday May 27 at Canadian Tire, Pino’s Get Fresh Grocery Store or James L. McIntyre Centennial Library on East Street.

I voted online on May 10. I am confident that the voter turnout in Thessalon will be quite high, considering their constituency is closed. Let’s stop this political scourge before it spreads.

Nadine Robinson’s column airs most Saturdays. You can reach her at the.ink.wr[email protected] or on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @theinkran.