Health-care system is 'broken,' Niagara woman says after dad dies suddenly in emergency room ( www.cbc.ca )

The (Ontario Health) coalition, which advocates for improvements to the public health care system, is documenting experiences like Zammit's at hearings around rural Ontario this month. With input from opposition critics, the network of over 400 grassroot organizations wants to draft recommendations on how to improve local hospitals, especially in rural areas.

Executive director Natalie Mehra said it will follow their report last year, which recorded almost 1,200 emergency room closures in the province.

"The goal is to push the Ford government and stop them from continuing to shut down and dismantle public health services and sort of destroy them through privatization," said Mehra.

The province is budgeted to spend $85 billion on health care this year, she noted.

Zammit said she didn't see that funding reflected on the ground.

Beaver ,
@Beaver@lemmy.ca avatar

Thanks Doug Ford.

BlameThePeacock ,

I actually read the article,

Dude was completely stable (no fever, vitals stable, etc.) while staying in the emergency room for multiple days from a normal illness. Then he suddenly died overnight after saying he was going to the night before to his daughter.

"Zammit doesn't know what caused her father's death but pointed to the lack of resources at the hospital as significant factors."

That doesn't sound like the hospital failed him, that sounds like he was 88 and people die around that age from natural causes all the time. I'm not saying hospitals can't save people, but people do die eventually, even in hospitals.

someguy3 ,

Thank you for summarizing.

rekabis ,

Nationalize healthcare, take it out of the control of the provinces, have its funding hard-set to population metrics and then insulate it completely from political meddling. Ensure that all upper-level execs in this crown corp have never nor will never be involved with a related free-market corp, in order to prevent corruption and service degradation in favour of Parasite-Class profit margins.

Set up turnkey operations for GPs such that new doctors are incentivized to service communities at the grassroots level without driving themselves into poverty. Set up national unions for all healthcare workers that ensure wages remain appropriate for each region’s CoL. Set up a watchdog that ensures hospitals and other institutions are being run decently well in relation to the funding they receive, with the ability to seize underperformers (as in, shareholders lose everything) in order to bring them back up to minimum thresholds of service.

Finally, make the government the only possible payer for any healthcare service for anything, from vision and dental to physio and anything science-based (too bad chiropracty, we don’t need your snake oil). As in, make it illegal for anyone to be charged anything out of pocket, including drugs. Use economies of scale to minimize costs to the taxpayer.

That’s how you resolve the current conditions: you utterly eviscerate the profit motive when dealing with healthcare.

brax ,

The problem is that this country is fucking brain-dead and tries to elect conservatives federally every chance they can. Shit, there's an actual chance somebody as against the general public as Poilivere could be elected. There are actually working class folk out there absolutely excited to fuck themselves and everybody else over by electing him in. Every point they make against Trudeau will very possibly continue or be worse under PP yet they're out there with raging truck boners hopping to vote him in.

And that has the potential to fuck the entire country over for healthcare instead of just a few lobotomized provinces.

Be careful what you wish for.

Pxtl ,
@Pxtl@lemmy.ca avatar

Don't worry, Ontario voters are still overwhelmingly supporting the pcpo, I'm sure things will get better.

brax ,

Not all of us, but it sure feels like the province has been lobotomized

Magister ,
@Magister@lemmy.world avatar

In QC also people are dying, forgotten, in ER...

Timecircleline ,

The shutting down and dismantling is the point. If the public health care system fails, private health care is more palatable, poor people die (and with the affordability crisis ongoing, most people are closer to this bucket) or stay sick and rich people get richer.

avidamoeba ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Elections have consequences.

YurkshireLad ,

Ah yes, Ford, who's more interested in getting beer into our bellies and land into the hands of his developer friends, than taking care of his constituents.

Friends don't let friends vote Tory.

girlfreddy OP ,
@girlfreddy@lemmy.ca avatar

Drug Fraud, the stealer of healthcare and thief of millions from healthcare transfer funds.

So, what to do now? Maybe stop electing asshole premiers who won't sign onto an agreement that locks healthcare transfers to be only spent on heathcare, education transfers to be spent on only education, etc etc. (which, btw, every premier declined to sign when Trudeau gave them extra billions ... because they're all fucking power-hungry assholes).

brax ,

so what to do now?

How about a Civics exam that you need to pass in order to vote? If somebody doesn't know the basics of the government including federal vs provincial vs municipal, then their vote shouldn't count because they have no underiof what they're voting for in the first place.

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