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The Ford government is dismantling public hospital services and privatizing them.

They are privatizing core public hospital services including surgeries, diagnostic testing, nurses and health professionals.

There were more than 1,200 vital local public hospital service closures in 2023 and the staffing crisis is the worst ever. Policy and budget choices by the Ford government have made it worse.

Click to see the evidence!

The threat to public medicare has never been more urgent

The Ford government is allowing for-profit clinics to charge patients hundreds -- or even thousands -- of dollars for needed medical care, in violation of our Public Medicare laws.

Thousands of Ontarians are now being forced to pay out-of-pocket for access to health care.  

Click to see the evidence!

Why is the public health system under pressure? Will funding private clinics and hospitals make it better or worse?

Get the answers to your questions about for-profit privatization of hospitals.

Read the facts about hospital privatization!

For 100 years, Ontario has built our system of local public hospitals that operate on a non-profit basis, in the public interest. Under the cover of the pandemic, the Ford government began to make plans to privatize Ontario’s public hospital services, including surgeries and diagnostics to private for-profit hospitals and clinics. Now, they are pouring millions into private for-profit clinics and hospitals, while imposing real-dollar cuts on our public hospitals.

Privatization of our hospitals is a take-away, not an add on. It will harm access to care for the vast majority of us.

Find out more!

Under the Canada Health Act, patients are protected from extra-billing and user fees but the Ford government is not only expanding private for-profit clinics, they are letting those clinics get away with charging patients thousands of dollars for needed tests and surgeries.

Leda from Kingston was charged $2,000 for an MRI at a private clinic. That charge is illegal in Ontario and in Canada. Chris from Sarnia, was charged $2,000 when she went to a private for-profit clinic for cataract surgery and then another $1,800 for a follow up surgery. Cathy from Niagara was charged $100 for a medically necessary liver scan at a private for-profit clinic. Judy’s husband, from Sarnia, was turned down for hernia surgery from the private for-profit Shouldice Hospital because he had COPD and they told him to go to a facility better suited to deal with a potential medical emergency. He had his surgery as a day surgery in a public hospital without complications and with no extra charges.

Click to see the evidence!

The Ford government is privatizing the next generation of long-term care homes.

They are giving new 30-year licenses and expansions for thousands of people to the for-profit chain companies -- including the very worst ones who are being sued for negligence for the deaths of thousands of their residents in horrific conditions in the pandemic. For-profit long-term care homes spend 24% less per year on care for each resident than for non-profit homes. Profit is taken from public funding and residents’ fees. In fact, the for-profit chains report to theirshareholders that they are taking tens of millions of dollars out of the homes in profits every single month.

Read the facts about Long Term Care privatization!

Plundering Public Health...

FOR PROFIT

For more than a hundred years, Ontarians have fundraised & volunteered to build our local public hospitals’ services. Together we built a world class public hospital system we could be proud of.

Privatization couldn’t happen unless they dismantled our public hospitals: underfunded them, pushed them into crisis, and left them without the resources they need to provide for our communities… and that is exactly what the Ford government is doing.

The Ford government is paying double for surgeries at a private for-profit hospital.

After she left office with the Ford government, former Health Minister Christine Elliott became a lobbyist for a corporation that owns a for-profit hospital.

The Ford government increased funding to that hospital by 278%. It is paying them more than double the cost per surgery than our local public hospitals— paid by our taxes.

Source: CBC News: Doug Ford government paying for-profit clinic more than hospitals for OHIP-covered surgeries, documents show, November 14, 2023

Real-dollar cuts for public hospitals, huge funding increases to for-profit clinics

Operating funding for public hospitals is in “real dollar cuts” increasing far below the rate of inflation this year (half of one percent: O.5%). At the same time, the Ford government has more than tripled the funding for private clinics (up 212%).

Source: Government of Ontario, Budget Estimates 2023-24 & 2022-23.

Operating rooms in public hospitals across Ontario are sitting empty or underused—Meanwhile, the Ford government is increasing funding to private clinics by more than 200%.

Ontario funds its public hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada.

Every service that has been cut from our public hospitals has been privatized. It’s not a coincidence. It is the plan.

Instead of privatizing, Ontario should match the funding other provinces give and improve our hospital services under public ownership & control.

For-profit privatization is an urgent threat to our health care

It siphons funding & staff out of our local public hospitals, forcing them to close services.

It costs more. Private clinics charge OHIP and they charge patients thousands of dollars in user fees on top, even though such fees are illegal.

Privatization enriches corporations at the expense of the health and well being of regular Ontarians.

People Over Profit

The Ford government does what it can get away with. But public pressure forced them to backtrack on their Greenbelt land development scandal.

If we all take action, we can pressure them to stop privatizing our health care too.

Making a Killing: Everything you want to know about privatization of public hospitals webinar