CORNWALL Ontario – There’s a picture of Elaine MacDonald leading a march down Pitt Street over the health accord in today’s Freeholder.
Ms MacDonald must have liked our march over the Chem tanks last month as she’s imitated it; but there are a couple of very scary issues at play.
First off Healthcare is one of, if not, the most important factor in Canadians lives. You can have all the money as Steve Jobs discovered, but if you are sick nothing much separates us.
Of course money can lead to greater care, but thanks to Tommy Douglas Canada created the first and largest Medicare plan in the World, and something that has been the model for many countries since.
Sadly over the last four decades we’ve seen Medicare erode from Province to Province where you now have places in Quebec and Alberta (as well as the other provinces; just not to the same degree) offering a lot of medical services in the Private market place. The optics of Private medicine are scary. There simply is no way to save money on services with an extra layer of profit involved.
Insurance companies,drug companies, Unions, and many other lobby groups have tilted the balance and yes, some narrow focused health services offer faster service for cash; but then they don’t have to carry more expensive or less profitable services that skew the optics; but these clinics are not solutions. They simply are bandaids to an artificially handicapped system.
When I was a young’un back in the 60’s I had a family doc. I’m lucky I’ve had the same personal doctor since 1984; but he will be retiring soon. I haven’t had a “real” personal doctor since moving to Ontario in 2003. I’m lucky that I have a semi-official one although I still venture back to Montreal for my “old doc” who stopped taking patients nearly ten years ago!
I’ve covered health care issues here in Cornwall for five years and frankly the turn out for events is gruesome. Watching Elaine MacDonald and about a dozen others; mostly part of her local NDP team like Paul Aubin is sad. While it’d be easy for me to lay the blame on Ms MacDonald for being petty and incompetent the sad truth is that even if she wasn’t people just don’t seem to care about healthcare until they are the ones that need it, and that is usually too late.
With the ten year Federal accord over and no replacement in sight Provincial governments will be further strapped for health care budgets; something that will impact all of us.
I think it’s done to help push certain agendas to eventually privatize health care like our neighbors to the South which would be a huge failure for our Country. There is no need to destroy Medicare except for the bottom lines of drug and insurance companies.
It simply doesn’t benefit you or I. So the question is why do our elected officials seem so dead set on allowing this to happen?
Do you care about healthcare? You can post your comment below.
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|I moved here in 2010 got a family doc in 2011 at the Seaway Valley community health Center.. Great place.. Lots of good programs for free… Like cooking or one, Exercises for seniors etc.. group walking at complex etc… Just to name a few.I cannot complain I got excellent service here…
Jane are you a Senior?
I’ve attended a few courses at the Seaway Valley Community Health Centre, it seems like a good place.
As for people not wanting to get involved I’ll repeat what I said in a previous post. I find as people get older, myself included, they are less likely to want to be involved in contentious issues and they leave it to others. The NIMBY principle comes in to play, but no one wants to get involved. Is it right? Probably not, but you can’t force people to do things they don’t want to do. As well, I find younger generations also don’t want to get involved. What’s the solution? I have no idea.
If I had know that there was a protest, I would of gone. Why was it not advertised?
Ask Elaine MacDonald Dave.
Thank you for the suggestion Admin. I emailed her on another problem. Never got a reply, so I doubt I would get one this time.
The Harper government’s reason for being is to shut down all public services. That should be clear to all by now. I haven’t had a “family” doctor since I was a kid in the fifties. The odd time I’ve needed patching up, the emergency department at a local hospital works fine for me.
@Furtz…the federal government does not manage provincial healthcare. What services were you referring to?
Agreed David Oldham. But they were paying for part of it. Just another way for Harper and his cronies to cut the deficit by eliminating healthcare payments to the provinces. Can’t wait for the 2015 federal election.
Hi, I am a supporter of the Ontario Health Coalition and I receive monthly letters from them on what is going on around our province for healthcare issues such as the governments agenda for privatization of health services and this walk of protest. I knew about the walk being done in bigger cities of the province. I did not hear of any events going on here locally until 20 minutes before the walk and was later told by a friend who was there I was not informed probably because I am no longer a “dipper” The president of our local dippers advised to me he was surprised by the lack of media publication for their local protest. Our healthcare although started by Tommy D does not make healthcare solely dipper property it involves all Ontarians. If our local dippers had advertised this event for all Ontario Healthcare supporters they would have seen more than just their 15 local supporters show up. Smile Jim M your job here is safe in this riding.
In my view, pharmaceutical companies have hi-jacked public health care, hence the high prices for prescription drugs. We have over 14-million school kids on prescription anti-depressants across North America . . . . the result of diagnosis that begins in the schools. Some 50-years ago, a kid got whacked on the bum for misbehaving in school . . . now they get put on anti-depressants. A percentage of doctors’ salaries accrues from writing prescriptions . . . no write prescriptions, NO PAY.
From what I have been reading so far from the articles (not CFN but others) Harpoon Harpo wants a two tiered system. We have relatives in Australia who have private insurance because they have high incomes and still they have a long waiting times in the hospitals and doctors offices. The whole thing is a scam and geared for the pharmaceutical companies as well as the insurance companies scamming the people from what they have. The little people will suffer terribly if this isn’t corrected. The vast majority of people will not be able to afford health care at all and doctors will suffer as well since nobody will go to them and many deaths. This is one of the areas of depopulation that is being told about by the New World Order. People better wake up to what is really going on.
@Hugger1…you have heard of throwing good money after bad? When governments waste billions of tax dollars ( Ontario E-Health, Orange, etc.) why should the rest of Canadian taxpayers be subject to extortion because Ontario is mismanaging its health care program? If transfer payments are trimmed to promote efficiencies within the provincial structure and the province continues to mismanage its affairs this is not the responsibility of the federal system. The duty of the federal government is not to prop up poor provincial leadership but rather to respectfully represent Canadians from coast to coast. You cannot please everyone but in a democracy the vocal majority is an acceptable number. The next federal election results will be the voice (as always) of the vocal majority.
In the case of the election for Cornwalls leadership that works out to about 38% of eligible voters.
Agreed David Oldham. But the transfer payments have stopped for ALL provinces, not just Ontario. I think this is more about Harpo getting his way with a two tiered system, those who can and those who can’t. And the number of voters who actually vote is low in any election, people just don’t care.
A two tiered system feared by the NDP (socialists)would take the pressure off an bloated,antiquated and inefficient corrupted administratively top heavy bureaucracy by allowing people the option of stepping out of line and using a privately run alternative. People need to take their heads out of the sand and realize that government run services are costly and subject to corruption without competition from the private sector. Government should be a facilitator not monopoly. Unless you prefer a communistic (socialistic) system. Freedom of choice will prevail until we turn over all of our rights completely to the government.
I agree David Oldham. Just as long as it doesn’t go as far as the U.S. health system.