03) HEALTH COALITION PUTS THE HEAT ON ONTARIO PARTIES

Special to PV

     Moving to make health care a priority issue in Ontario's election campaign, the Ontario Health Coalition organized a mass rally at Queen's Park on Sept. 13. Buses from across the province brought demonstrators into Toronto, taking the demand for clear commitments to safeguard local health care services directly to the political parties.

     Polls show that health care ranks at the top of the public's agenda. But while every political party will promise to fund and improve health care, "lip‑service is not enough," warns the OHC.

     The Coalition says that Ontarians need clear commitments on key issues. These include: full‑service local hospitals safe from fear of service cuts, closed ERs and rural hospital closures; the right to access comprehensive chronic care whether a patient is in hospital, a nursing home or home care; action to address severe front‑line staffing shortages; improvements and new capacity built in public and non‑profit agencies and institutions.

     Comprehensive health care for Ontario patients and seniors, says the OHC, means chronic, rehabilitative, long term and home care that Ontarians can rely on to be there when we need it. The Coalition has been campaigning for equitable non‑profit and public care; rather than P3s, this means building capacity in public non‑profit hospitals and long term care homes, and restoring public/non‑profit home care.

     Earlier this year, the Health Coalition circulated over 100,000 leaflets which made powerful points about health care and taxes:

     "Since 1990, Ontario has cut corporate taxes and taxes for the wealthiest, faster and deeper than anywhere in Canada. Who benefits? A study by economist Marc Lee looked at what tax cuts have meant for Canadians. Almost all Canadians see no benefit from tax cuts. Only the top 10% of the income scale (individuals earning $120,000‑$266,000 or more per year) have profited from the tax cuts that began in the early 1990s. Ontario now funds our hospitals less than almost anywhere else in Canada. As a result hospital beds are cut, services moved out of local communities, and overcrowding is rampant."

     Ontario Communist leader Elizabeth Rowley, a candidate in the Brampton-Springdale riding, was at the OHC rally to campaign for her Party's health care platform.

     "People in Ontario face a clear choice in this election, with respect to public health care," said Rowley. "One the one hand, we can continue down the path of underfunding, delisting, privatization and profiteering. This is the path that erodes public health care and takes Ontario back to a time when good health was a privilege of the rich. Or, we can take the path that reverses privatization, that strengthens universality of health care, and that expands coverage to include pharmacare, dental and vision care."

     Rowley noted that the Communist Party has championed the cause of public health care since the party's formation in 1921. "In the 1930s Dr. Norman Bethune, a leading member of the Communist Party of Canada, campaigned long and hard for universal, public medicine. The struggle for socialized health care has always been a key part of our Party's history and the history of the working class in Canada. We have no intention of sitting idly by while health corporations and the political parties that serve them undo what millions of people fought to win and protect."

     The Communist platform includes emergency and long‑term action to preserve and expand public health care in Ontario:

* Stop privatization and end Public Private Partnerships;

* Enforce the Canada Health Act, ban private clinics and abolish LHINs;

* Reverse delisting of services and expand health coverage to include dental and eye care, drugs and long‑term care;

* Deliver needs‑based funding for public hospitals and health care, and rescind balanced budget legislation;

* Recognize the credentials of internationally trained physicians and health care workers;

* Make abortion services universally accessible in free standing clinics and all hospitals;

* Act now to improve health, education and living standards of Aboriginal Peoples.

(The above article is from the September 16-31, 2011, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)