Health Care

A universal, not-for-profit public health care system is the best way to provide health services to Canadians.

CUPE fights for quality public health services. We want to protect existing services, like hospitals, and strengthen and broaden other services like long-term care and home care and accessibility to prescription drugs.

CUPE represents the largest number of employees in the health care system – 190,000 – including auxiliary nurses, support staff and paramedics.

Public solutions in health care

Public solutions deliver more, cost less and cover everyone

Canada’s public health care system is in crisis. Patients are facing emergency room closures, longer wait times for surgery and a shortage of doctors. Health care workers are struggling with fewer resources, heavier workloads, and more risks to their health and safety.

More and more, provincial governments are turning to private, for-profit companies to build hospitals and deliver essential health care services. The federal government is allowing public dollars in the form of health care transfer payments to flow out of the public system and into private clinics and service providers.

We all know that improvements are needed. But, privatization brings higher costs, lower quality, and favours the wealthy over everyone else. Instead, improvements can and must be made within our public and universal health care system.

Public solutions deliver better results and higher quality of care for less money. With public solutions our health care system can grow to meet the needs of CUPE members, our families and our communities.