1. Cross Country Checkup is today at 4 p.m. on CBC radio one. That is Toronto time (EST).Across the country, the time shifts according to the time zone. Thus it is at 3 p.m. in Central Canada, 1 p.m. in B.C., and 5 p.m. in Nova Scotia etc.
2. You can tweet at CBC or email them your disappointment with the question and your response to it. There are reams of tweets telling them off for the inexcusable bias in the framing of the issue and the question ! Their twitter handle is @checkupcbc. We also tweeted out my original email to you in abridged format if you want to see it at @ontariohealthc. Their email contact is through an online form at https://www.cbc.ca/radio/checkup/contact-cross-country-checkup-1.4362725
3. For-profit clinics lengthen wait lists because they cost more per unit of public funding and because they take staff out of public hospitals.
- When the Harris Conservative government tried to privatize cancer treatment we and the opposition parties eventually won a special audit. The auditor found that each treatment cost $400 more( in 2000 $ so considerably more now). So for every unit of cost we put in we got far more cancer treatment in the public cancer treatment clinics. The auditor found that instead of reducing the wait list, the wait list had gone up.
- In Saskatchewan where the government is a real ardent privateer bunch, they privatized MRIs and the wait lists went up. The private clinics charged a starting rate of 4-5 times the cost in the public system then pretended (with the full help of the provincial government) that they were providing two-for-one MRI scans. Anyway, as per testimony in the Sask Legislature wait times went up not down.
- The same thing happened when Alberta experimented with private hip and knee surgery clinics back under the Klein government. The data showed that in the regions with the private clinics wait times were longer.
- The private cataract surgery clinics charge far more than OHIP. From OHIP alone they get $605 per surgery (compared to $550 in a public hospital) and they charge patients $200 for medically unnecessary eye tests (only they don't tell the patient it is medically unnecessary), some charge $2,000 for the cataract surgery or more ON TOP of OHIP, many charge thousands for medically unnecessary lenses etc. But to be clear, they charge more to OHIP alone, then all the add ons as well.
In Ontario and across the country when they bring in private clinics, local hospitals lose vital MRI techs or nurses and other staff. The local public hospitals had to cut MRI hours as a result. This actually happened. We have severe shortages of nurses and health professionals. We cannot lose more from our public hospitals. Furthermore, in a public hospital, doctors do call (overnights), quality of care committees, teaching for medical students etc. They do rounds and all kinds of other work that keeps the hospital going. If they can go and just bill to the sky doing the fast track easy surgeries and live like royalty without having to do call, committees, all kinds of other support, then the local hospitals lose doctors, worsening shortages etc.
Finally the private clinics place competing demands on the resources for the complex cancer surgeries and the like that are done in public hospitals, redirecting them to cataract surgeries and elective surgeries. There is no question, both need to be done. But there is absolutely value in having the public governance of a local hospital balancing between the needs of the complex patients and those with quick and easy surgeries. Plus we have all kinds of unused operating room time in our public hospitals which could be used if they only funded them. Private clinics disrupt that, taking away resources -- financial and human -- and make the waits longer for most people. They also threaten the viability of our local hospitals.
4. People are responding in lots of ways. Here is a good example from Judy Rebick (professor, author, famous activist and great Canadian) of what she sent in to CBC:
- “ This is how privatization gets normalized. Hope you will call and say even if you could pay, you don’t want to because it would further undermine the long waiting lists for people who can’t.”
- Others are saying shame on you for repeating the privatizers' propaganda and things like that.
- Many are also saying no way to privatizing health care and telling CBC why not.
Okay, I hope this helps.5. For those who want to see the shoddy privatization story from the CBC Queen's Park reporter this week that failed to interview one single public interest voice, while they interviewed a private clinic owner and a wealthy patient queue-jumper. Note: that patient paid $23,000 for hip surgery in a private clinic. Perhaps he would not think it such a good deal if he knew that surgery costs less than $5,000 under OHIP. We could have told CBC that, had they asked.
The article also contains misinformation about the legality of charging patients in private clinics in adjacent provinces. It is illegal under the Canada Health Act to charge for medically needed hospital or physician care. The principles of the Act include portability -- that this applies coast to coast to coast. I did explain that to another CBC journalist. I don't know why they would quote the private clinics as to what the laws are (that they are breaking). Grr.