Blog Posts

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Briefing Note – Doug Ford’s Omnibus Health Bill (Bill 74)

Not a Single New Service or Improvement to Care
We have excellent health care. We just don’t have enough of it. Yet Doug Ford’s new health care omnibus bill does not open a single new health care service. Not a single surgery to help tackle wait lists. Not one new nursing home space. No more health professionals, vital support staff, nurses or doctors.

At the same time, Ontario has the fewest hospital beds left of any province in the country and of any developed nation, even while patients wait for days on stretchers for a bed to open up. Every major hospital has operating rooms that are closed due to lack of funding, even while people wait for surgeries. Our province funds our hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada. We also have the second fewest long-term care beds of any province while wait-lists number 33,800. The evidence is clear: cuts and rationing have gone too far. In fact, in the election Mr. Ford traversed the province promising more, not a wholesale dismembering of the health system.

Briefing note – Doug Ford’s Omnibus Health Bill (Bill74)

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Warning that Leaked Health Care Omnibus Bill Would Create Health Care Chaos: Longstanding Leaders of Organizations Representing Patients, Care Workers, Doctors

Toronto — Academic leaders, democracy advocates, patient advocates, front-line care workers and doctors are alt speaking with one voice when it comes to the leaked health care omnibus bill that has secretly been planned by the Ford government for months: if passed, it would cause health care chaos that will last for years. Speaking at a Queen’s Park press conference this morning, representatives called on the Ford government to rethink their plans; to rebuild capacity in our public health care to meet population need and consult with Ontarians in a proper and meaningful democratic consultation process about the future of our health care system, rather than engaging in massive restructuring and privatization.

Ontario Health Coalition February 11, 2019

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Ford government won’t hear from more than 1,500 on sweeping health restructuring bill

Toronto: The Ontario Health Coalition will appear before the Ontario Legislature’s Standing Committee on Social
Policy this morning in the public hearings into Bill 74. The Ford government’s new health restructuring law, the Coalition reports, gives the Minister of Health and the government’s appointees in the new Super Agency sweeping new powers to order, direct, coerce through funding powers, and otherwise force health service restructuring and privatization. The Coalition is concerned that local health care services will be put in jeopardy, that any remaining local control over health services is being taken away, that the legislation enables the government and the Super Agency to force the privatization of a massive array of health care services, and that the legislation has been stripped of all democratic protections. Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra issued the following statement this morning in response to the government’s refusal to date to hold public hearings across Ontario and to consult with the people of the province who fund our health care system.

Ontario Health Coalition April 1, 2019

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Canadian Office & Professional Employees’ Union

On February 26, 2019, the Ontario Government introduced the People’s Health Care Act, 2019 (Bill 74). This Act proposes the establishment of a single Health Agency— Ontario Health (the Super Agency) and the establishment of local Ontario Health Teams that will connect health care providers and services around patients and families.

COPE letter

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Want to stop the new Health “Super Agency”? Attend a Health Coalition Town Hall Rally

The Ford government is proposing massive restructuring to hospitals, long-term care, home care, community care, mental health, etc.
The new legislation, which has been forged with no public consultation whatsoever, will take away local control of health care services.

Protect our local health care services from mega-mergers and privatization.

Protect and improve our public health care! NO to cuts & privatization!

April30 Rally Poster3
Town hall poster updated
Get on the bus list

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Thanks Terry!

A huge shout out to one of the TBRHSC retirees Terry Blatchford. Terry was the 50/50 winner at the annual COPE Local 96 Christmas dinner and donated a large amount of her winnings to the Paediatrics Department at the Regional Hospital.

This year COPE Local 96 decided to donate half the money raised from the 50/50 to a local charity/organization in our community. The Paediatrics Department holds a Christmas party every year for the children who are in the hospital at Christmas time. Santa comes to visit the children in the hospital even when they can’t make it home for the holidays. All the money raised helped buy Christmas gifts for the children. COPE Local 96 hopes to make a yearly donation to such worthwhile causes. Tyler Biloski from “The Magic and Illusion of Tyler Biloski” will be there as well to put on a show for the children.

We hope everyone had a good time at the Christmas dinner.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from your COPE Local 96 Executive.