The Ontario Health Coalition is staging a series of rallies across the Province today, to further mobilize public opposition to Doug Ford’s plan to privatize Health Care.
The biggest event will be on the grounds of the legislature in Toronto.
That’s Leona Haley, Chair of the Renfrew County Health Coalition.
Leona says her fledgling group will join others at the rally being held in the Nation’s Capital.
The rally will be across from the Ottawa General Hospital campus, 550 Smyth Road beginning at Noon.
Haley says he list of health care services that the Ford government is trying to privatize is growing; with it, patients are being charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars in illegal user fees for access to needed medical care. Such user charges and extra billing for patients have been banned in Canada for decades.
She says the Renfrew County Chapter got its start by participating in the OHC’s informal Health Care referendum sixteen months ago.
Over the last year, more than a billion dollars in public funding has gone to private for-profit clinics and for-profit staffing agencies to privatize what had been, to date, public non-profit services.
Leona says her group is bringing the rally to the Valley in mid June.
For more information: Leona Haley, Chair, Renfrew County Health Coalition, 613 602 1646, renfrewcountyohc@gmail.com
By Rick Stow