The “P3 disease” is spreading and eating away our public health system. At press conferences held simultaneously in over 30 communities on February 24, health coalitions warned that provincial governments are working in concert with for-profit health corporations to build private hospitals across the country. The joint action lends new urgency to examine issues around P3s at a national level.
A nationwide count shows that up to 15 P3 hospitals are in the planning stages, including two in British Columbia, one in Alberta, at least eight in Ontario, and two in Quebec. Other governments are flirting with P3 schemes, including New Brunswick and Newfoundland.
More often than not, multinationals are bidding in more than one province. For example, Carillion, a partner in the Healthcare Infrastructure Company of Canada, has been awarded P3 contracts in Ottawa and Brampton, Ontario. At the same time they are part of a bid to build a new P3 hospital in Calgary.
Based in the UK, Carillion holds the record for long waiting times – and cutting corners. A patient at a Carillion hospital was contacted by the Guinness Book of World Records after waiting on a trolley for 144 hours. Another Carillion hospital was forced to suspend surgeries because there was no water in the scrub rooms for sterilization.
The Canadian Health Coalition has sent an open letter to federal health minister Pierre Pettigrew calling for “an immediate moratorium on any initiatives to privatize the delivery of health care services, including public-private partnerships”.
The letter also highlighted the impact of international trade agreements on Medicare, warning that these agreements will give health multinationals access to the domestic health care sector.
