Covid-19 – Build Capacity in Public Non-Profit Healthcare

Public Goods • March 24, 2020

Canadian Healthcare Coalitions Joint Statement

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the extent to which our individual health is dependent on the health of everyone in our community. Public healthcare is our best defense against this crisis and others like it. However, our ability to endure crises and care for each other has been eroded through decades of austerity budgets, privatization and inadequate planning. Even during “normal times,” the healthcare system is at capacity.

While healthcare workers and communities are struggling to support each other, corporate interests are trying to profit. This must be resisted. The solution is not privatization. Instead, we should be strengthening universal healthcare and our collective ability to care for one another.

As governments ramp up efforts to address the current crisis, Health Coalitions across Canada are calling for them to resist privatization and to uphold the foundational principles of equity and compassion that underlie our public healthcare system.

We call upon all levels of government to work together to reclaim and increase the capacity of our public healthcare system to:

Address existing health inequities by removing barriers to access and scaling up services for marginalized communities

Restore capacity in our public hospitals by reopening facilities and beds that have been closed due to funding cuts and downsizing, and expand capacity under public and non-profit hospital governance

Follow the lead of Spain and bring for-profit healthcare facilities under public control to enable a rapid and streamlined response in the public interest

Improve supports for healthcare workers, including by adopting the strongest protective standards, enhancing recruitment and retention, and giving workers the resources and equipment they need

Ensure that all services are available free of charge and delivered publicly, including testing, vaccination, hospital stays and telehealth.

Now more than ever, we need a universal, public healthcare system that puts patients before profits, that prioritizes the health of everyone living in Canada and that honours and respects the principles of the Canada Health Act.

We cannot allow this crisis to be used to dismantle universal, public healthcare in Canada. Instead, we must renew our commitment to a system based not on profit, but instead on the shared belief that healthcare is a human right. •

Signatories:

Alternatives North (NWT)

BC Health Coalition

Canadian Health Coalition

Coalition solidarité santé

Friends of Medicare (Alberta)

Health Coalition of NFLD & Labrador

Manitoba Health Coalition

Nova Scotia Health Coalition

Ontario Health Coalition

PEI Health Coalition

We Will Not Allow Governments and for-profit healthcare corporations to use a crisis as cover for healthcare privatization

Please find above an urgent call upon governments at every level in Canada to build capacity in the public healthcare, expand equity, and resist privatization in the face of COVID-19 from Provincial, Territorial and National Health Coalitions representing more than a million Canadians. Printable version is attached.

Deeply concerned about deregulation of controls on private clinics, apps and telehealth developments that are controlled by for-profit corporations, and pro-privatization provincial governments in a number of provinces; Health Coalitions across Canada have developed the following joint statement. It is a warning from the groups that have been raising the alarm and advocating against the austerity measures, public hospital and downsizing and long-term care rationing that have robbed our health system of it resilience. Public healthcare’s importance as an essential part of our social fabric is evident now, more than ever. Now, more than ever, the principles of public healthcare need to be upheld. Safeguarding public healthcare requires that healthcare be organized and governed in the public realm, as a pubic and non-profit service that is run in the public interest and not for private profit.

We have already seen the damage that for-profit clinics have done to equitable access to care, charging thousands of dollars to patients unlawfully for services for which we have already paid in our public taxes, billing at prices up to five times those in our public health system for care, and charging seniors for extra unnecessary add-ons to make more profit.

This statement calls upon our governments to urgently restore and build capacity to deal with the crisis, but to do it under public and non-profit governance. Already in Alberta we see that the provincial government has contracted the communications giant TELUS to do online primary care while cutting public healthcare services. In Ontario our government started developing new public hospital capacity in private for-profit entities that are not governed under the public hospitals act, leaving serious questions about safety, regulation, quality of care, transparency of governance, access to information, workforce planning and unionization. Just prior to the declaration of the pandemic, Ontario’s government introduced a new law that would enable the expansion of private hospitals. Thankfully it is on hold at the moment as normal legislative business has been delayed for the health crisis. In B.C. we are hearing that the regulation to stop private clinics from extra-billing patients may be lifted. In Quebec, the health coalition is also concerned about privatization.

We will remain vigilant and we will not allow our governments and private for-profit healthcare corporations to use a crisis as cover for healthcare privatization.

Thank you for reading and sharing. •

Natalie Mehra

Executive Director

Ontario Health Coalition

Déclaration commune des coalitions de la santé sur la COVID-19 et les soins de santé publics

La pandémie de la COVID-19 a dévoilé jusqu’à quel point notre santé individuelle dépend de la santé de toutes les personnes dans notre collectivité. Les soins de santé publics sont notre meilleure défense contre cette crise et toute autre crise similaire. Toutefois, notre capacité à gérer les crises et à prendre soin les uns des autres a diminuéen raison de décennies de budgets axés sur l’austérité, de privatisation et de planification inadéquate. Même pendant les «périodes normales» notre système de soins de santé atteint sa pleine capacité.

Pendant que les travailleurs de la santé et les collectivités se débattent pour s’offrir du soutien, les entreprisesne pensent qu’à leurs intérêts etessaient de faire des profits. Il faut résister à cela. La solution n’est pas la privatisation. Nous devrions plutôt consolider les soins de santé universels et mettre l’accent sur notre capacité collective de prendre soin les uns des autres.

Pendant que les gouvernements mobilisent les efforts pour surmonter la criseactuelle, les coalitions de la santé du Canada leur demandent de résister à la privatisation et d’honorer les principes fondamentaux d’équité et de compassion sur lesquels reposent notre système public de soins de santé.

Nous demandons à tous les niveauxde gouvernement de collaborer pour rétablir et augmenter la capacité de notre système public de soins de santé afin de faire ce qui suit:

S’attaquer aux iniquités actuelles dans le secteur de la santé en éliminant les obstacles à l’accès,et en augmentantles services pour les communautésmarginales

Rétablir la capacité dans nos hôpitaux publics en ouvrant les établissements, et les lits,qui ont été fermés en raison de compressions budgétaires et de réductions des effectifs, et augmenter la capacité des hôpitaux publics et à but non lucratif

Suivre l’exemple de l’Espagne etmettre les établissements de santé à but lucratif souscontrôle public afin de faire place à une réponse rapide et simplifiée dans l’intérêt du public

Améliorer les mesures de soutien pour les travailleurs de la santé, y compris adopter les normes de protection les plus fermes, augmenter le recrutement et le maintien en poste, et offrir aux travailleurs les ressources et les équipements dont ils ont besoin

Assurer que tous les services soient disponibles gratuitement et dispensés par l’État, y compris les tests, les vaccins, les séjours à l’hôpital et télésanté.

Nous avons besoin, plus que jamais auparavant, d’un système public et universel de soins de santé qui fait passerle patient avant les profits, qui donne priorité à la santé de toutes les personnes vivant au Canada, et qui honore et respecte les principes de la Loi canadienne sur la santé .

Nous ne pouvons pas permettre à cette crise d’être utilisée pour démanteler les soins de santé publics et universels au Canada. Nous devons plutôt renouveler notre engagement envers un système non pas axé sur les profits mais plutôt fondé sur une valeur partagée, notamment le fait que les soins de santé sont un droit de la personne. •