Canadian friends:
The OHC recently released key info for local advocacy against the gutting of public healthcare.
"The contrast could not be more stark. While public hospitals are receiving real dollar cuts, the private clinics (euphemistically called Independent Health Facilities) have been given more than 212% increase since last year, from $38,693,100 in 2022-23 to $120,693,100 in 2023-24. Their funding more than tripled in one year."
Cont'd:
"The [OHC] has phoned all the private clinics in Canada twice, and all the private for-profit clinics in Ontario an additional time. Each time we caught the majority of them extrabilling patients. This violates the Canada Health Act, the Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act, and other provincial legislation. Without question, the privatization of public hospital services poses a real and urgent threat to the future of single-tier public medicare in our province and our country."
&--
"While the Ford government is diverting hundreds of millions of dollars to for-profit clinics and hospitals to rebuild operating room capacity, across Ontario there are ORs in every public hospital that are underused. ... The majority of the time, the majority of Ontario’s OR capacity in our public hospitals lies dormant. In many hospitals there are [ORs] closed permanently ... because the hospital does not have the funding to recruit and retain the staff and pay for the operation of them."
Enshittification, mi gente!
It's not just for online spaces, unfortunately.
In Ontario, this government has been gutting education and healthcare for years so that poor outcomes therein help to provide a case for private industry to step in.
Private lobbies did NOT always hold as much sway in Canadian systems as they now do. But the slide toward US models does not need to continue. There's still time to reverse this bullpucky and restore the public trust--*if* a willingness to act shows up.
The dismantling of "public good", is not surprising. What is surprising is that it has become normalized. And people are only talking about the degree of Enshittification they are willing to put up with.
Agreed. And that normalization bodes poorly for our collective sense of agency to enact change.
If we can't shake the morale problem, things are only going to get worse before the breaking point that finally leads us to building better. And a lot more people are going to suffer in the agonizing interim.
We have to cultivate pragmatic hope in our ability to make a difference. Somehow.
@corlin
Count me among those looking forward to reading your work. 👍