Quality health care means public, not-for-profit health care. That’s the message CUPE Manitoba is bringing to the Kirby Commission, which is reviewing Canada’s health care system, at presentations October 15 in Winnipeg.
“We know first-hand about the costly failed experiments with privatization in home care and private sector involvement in the frozen food fiasco in Winnipeg’s hospitals,” says division president Paul Moist.
“Bringing the Pan Am Clinic into the public system and banning overnight stays in private clinics was the right choice for our province. Manitobans want our provincial and federal governments to invest in public health care – not parcel it off to for-profit corporations. Our health care is not a commodity.”
Moist says the federal government now has billions of dollars in surplus yet transfer payments to the provinces for important public services like health care are still far lower than they were a decade ago.
“When adjusted for inflation, the real federal CHST transfer to the provinces is about 23 per cent below 1993-4 levels,” Moist says. “We can achieve shorter waiting times and a sustainable health care system through appropriate public health care funding. The Liberal government must honour its commitment to Canadians.”