(November 24, 2005, Toronto)
The Ontario government's just announced Local Health Integration Networks
legislation, far from enhancing health care decisions made by people in their
communities, will take health care services from community control and put it in
the hands of a bureaucratic, unelected and unaccountable 14 teams of Dalton
McGuinty appointees.
Already we are seeing what McGuinty's centralization of health care services
will do. The province has already decided to send long term care patients from
Sudbury to Parry Sound.
Such decisions will become more common if the government is intent on
enacting the LHIN legislation in its present form.
The legislation is all about integration, co-ordination and amalgamation of
health care services. These are just buzz words for cost containment, more
privatization of services and the removal of any community control over the
health services they need.
It is no coincidence that Health Minister Smitherman's first public
introduction to this legislation was at a Bay St. audience.
Rather than the Orwellian language the minister uses of "local management of
health care in ontario", Ontario health care system is becoming more centralized
so the government can continue to advance its privatization of health care
services at a faster pace.
The first in line for privatization will be hospital services such as dietary
and environmental services, which will be quickly followed by services such as
human resources, finances and laboratories.
This legislation will simply make it easier to transfer our public health
care dollars to for profit interests.