Reply #15: well [View All]

[iverglas]

All of us Cdns here are right about two-tier health care: just say no.

I had the, uh, good fortune to see it in operation in the UK about 10 years ago, when my mother and I were visiting and she took a header on the paving stones and we had to take her to the closest NHS hospital in working-class, immigrant Stoke Newington (north London). That will be the bottom tier. And I saw what happened when that tier -- i.e. those people, the ones waiting patiently (or raving insanely) in the emergency room waiting room with us -- were abandoned by the taxpayers (what we used to call "citizens"). The five-hour wait, the blood on the floor and the reception desk and the examining table, right down to the absence of ice to apply to a head injury during that five-hour wait.

At that very moment, my London friend's partner was languishing in a brand-new hospital in the West End, sleeping in her private room after an afternoon relaxing in the sun-filled inner atrium, having batteries of tests performed, choosing from the gourmet menu, seeing the best specialists that money could buy.

No, thankee.

But some of us are just a trifle deluded about Dalton, I'm afraid. Ah, time will tell.

Remember the "public private partnership" hospital deals inked by Eves on the eve of his destruction -- that McGuinty vowed to rip up?

http://www.opseu.org/news/Press2003/nov212003.htm

November 21, 2003

Royal Ottawa Hospital: public in name only

OTTAWA: Premier McGuinty’s announcement at the Royal Ottawa Hospital (ROH) today disappointed members of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union local at the hospital.

The announcement lacked details on how this new deal differs from the former Conservative government’s plans to privatize the hospital. McGuinty said the ROH would be a “public” hospital, but said some services would still be privatized.

... “We are extremely disappointed in this deal, which looks just like a private hospital by another name,” said Marlene Rivier, President of OPSEU Local 479. “Many of our services have already been contracted out and this must stop.”

“We have still not seen any plans. Bed cuts remain a concern. We still have no guarantees that commercial interests will not eclipse clinical needs. The hospital’s priority should be providing care, not investment opportunities,” Rivier said.

Time will tell ...

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