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QUEEN’S PARK – Marit Stiles, Leader of the Official Opposition, France Gélinas (Nickel Belt), Ontario NDP Health critic, and MPP Jessica Bell (University—Rosedale) urged the Ford government to put patients ahead of shareholders today by investing in Ontario’s public health care system instead of selling it off.
“It is crystal clear that the government has no plan to actually address the health care staffing crisis, shorten wait times, or stop community emergency rooms from closing,” said Stiles. “Ford is so ideologically set on handing Ontario’s health care over to private shareholders that he is ignoring more effective solutions within our public system.”
Marit Stiles and the Ontario NDP are proposing fixes that could be implemented faster and would keep health care accessible to all.
As one example, Bell pointed to at least two hospitals in her riding.
“There are operating rooms sitting unused right now because the government hasn’t adequately funded the staff to run them,” Bell said. “Allowing for-profit surgeries is not going to alleviate that staffing shortage.”
In Question Period today, Stiles and the Ontario NDP team hammered the Premier and the Minister of Health over the Ford government’s privatization legislation, which Stiles described as “short on details and solutions to our health care crisis.”
“There is no oversight to protect patients in this legislation,” Gélinas said. “Your bill just allows big corporations to make big profits off the backs of sick people.”
Stiles, Gélinas, and Bell will join health care workers and other Ontario NDP MPPs at a rally to keep health care public today at 5 pm.
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