Hundreds gathered in Halifax today where Canada’s premiers are meeting to discuss health care. The Canadian Health Coalition rally brought labour organizations, health care and community activists together to send the message that privatization is no solution to the health care crisis.
National Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick spoke on behalf of CUPE’s 750,000 members, 250,000 of whom work on the front lines in health care and experience first-hand the consequences of deliberate government neglect.
“Untenable workloads, violence, inadequate pay and benefits, and lack of respect have caused the worst staff shortages we’ve ever seen,” Rennick said. “To say public health care is facing a dire funding crisis doesn’t do it justice. A record number of ERs have closed. Wait times are unreasonable. Too many in Canada are without a family doctor.”
Despite this crisis, many of the premiers gathered are making things worse by diverting public dollars to private clinics, private staffing agencies and to the private equity firms that own long-term care facilities. For-profit health care companies pull millions of dollars from the public system, at the expense of patient care.
“We are calling on the premiers here this week to find courage and political will to deliver the health care system Canadians need and deserve,” Rennick concluded. “Let’s make it clear to all Premiers, to Prime Minister Trudeau and want-a-be Prime Minister Pierre Poilievre: we are organized, and we will mobilize, and we will do whatever it takes to defend and expand public health care.”