Private Billing and Health Clinics: Rebuild Capacity in Public Hospitals
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- Published on Wednesday, 14 June 2017 22:45
- Written by editor
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1432 .... June 15, 2017
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Private Billing and Health Clinics: Rebuild Capacity in Public Hospitals
Natalie Mehra
In the Globe and Mail this weekend, physicians who are extra-billing patients for services at private clinics justified themselves by complaining that they cannot get operating room time and waits are too long in the public system.
Let's be honest, these problems do exist. But these problems do not justify double-billing -- charging the public healthcare system and patients as well for healthcare. They do not justify breaking Canadian laws that are meant to provide equity and protect patients from user fees when they are sick, elderly and least able to pay. And they do not justify charging two times, three times, five times or even more what the public system pays... for healthcare services to seniors and patients when they are sick and in need.
At the Ontario Health Coalition, we have been advocating for 10-years to stop the cuts and reinvest in our public hospitals. We have led this fight, which we know is overwhelmingly supported by the public. But in all these years of advocating to save and improve services in our public hospitals, the private clinic owners that are justifying their extra-billing of patients by complaining about access to operating room time have been nowhere in sight. They have not joined in the fight to save local hospitals from closure, I have not seen them advocating to improve public hospital funding, to build public capacity, nor to ensure that funding goes to care.
