The New York Times reported yesterday how the coronavirus crisis is prodding a wave of mostly progressive American physicians to enter politics. Many are women and most have connected the dots between the United States’ appalling Third World health care system and the disastrous rate of COVID-19 infection and death
Continue readingTag: Ontario Health Coalition
OPSEU Diablogue: “Care as a relationship” is key to good long-term care: research
What are long-term care residences around the world doing right? That’s the question an international research team travelled across North America and Europe to find out. Led by Pat Armstrong and Donna Baines, researchers visited nursing homes in C…
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Today’s big demonstration at Queen’s Park
Today will likely be the biggest Ontario Health Coalition demonstration at Queen’s Park since 2008. Across Ontario seniors groups, union activists and family members frustrated with their own access to care will be boarding more than 40 buses, some in … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Thanksgiving: Here’s to our allies working for the public interest
Recently the UK Guardian reported on Sweden’s rejection of tax cuts and privatization by returning the Social Democrats to power. Eight years’ experience with privatization of public services didn’t leave Swedes feeling confident about the broadening control of public services … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Problems at clinics should prompt rethink on competitions for hospital services
The media is applauding Health Minister Dr. Eric Hoskins this week for promising greater transparency around private clinic inspections that had previously been kept secret by Toronto Public Health and The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (TCPSO). Tom … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Promises to fix long term care tepid despite 29 violent deaths
We hope they will take time to remember the 29. Today the Ontario Health Coalition is launching their rocking chair tour across the province to draw attention to the lack of staffing in the province’s nursing homes. Lack of staffing … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Libs say budget “platform for next 30 days” after NDP vows to pull the plug
Well that was quick. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath told the media this morning that she cannot support the Wynne budget, or more specifically, the Wynne government. Horwath’s remarks suggested it wasn’t so much about the content of yesterday’s budget, but … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: The Lang-Jimbo Reality Show? CBC may be missing its moment
Somebody suggested that the CBC would be a far more interesting place if the Lang-O’Leary Exchange morphed into the Lang-Jimbo Reality Show. Now that’s a CBC we might be inclined to fight a little harder to protect. There are not … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Make history — meet us in Niagara-on-the-lake July 24-25
It’s the last meeting of the provincial Premiers before the 10-year 2004 health accord expires. With the expiry of that accord, so too goes any concerted effort to implement a national strategy to fix health care. July 24-25 the Premiers will get … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Home care – it’s critical we get it right this time
Ontario’s Community Care Access Centres could have been very different had events unfolded differently in the early 1990s. At the beginning of that decade home care was considered to have more of a leg in social services than health care. … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Transferring hospital services to private clinics — a line in the sand
OTTAWA – Natalie Mehra says The Ontario Health Coalition is drawing a line in the sand when it comes to service transfers to private endoscopy clinics from The Ottawa Hospital. Speaking at a “Code Blue” forum in Ottawa last night, the … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Video: Kingston is “Voting in the Streets”
It had all the trappings of an election — lawn signs, leaflets, TV commercials, media coverage and an army of volunteers knocking on doors. This vote, however, wasn’t run by any level of government but by a group of citizens opposed … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Kingston votes 96 per cent against hospital privatization
It had all the trappings of an election. There were lawn signs, TV commercials, and door-to-door campaigners. The local media solicited the views of both politicians and citizens as everyone scrambled to become informed before the vote. Saturday Kingston residents … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: A tale of two LHINs – Champlain could learn from Central East when it comes to community involvement
In the past few weeks we have been challenging the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to step up to the plate around cuts and transfers of services from The Ottawa Hospital. Champlain LHIN CEO Chantale LeClerc has dug herself in for … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Auditor’s Report — Warning flags about diagnostic self referrals
Today’s release by the Ontario Health Coalition regarding the 2012 report by the Auditor General of Ontario: Toronto – The Ontario Auditor General’s report released today raises warning flags about inadequate access to care and the perils of for-profit privatization. The … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Are health services really shifting, or is the health minister being shifty?
We can all relax now. All those hospital cuts we’ve witnessed recently – Health Minister Deb Matthews says they are not happening. She says these services are instead being shifted. Evidently we are all fools for not realizing that the … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: 10 Insights from the Action Assembly Weekend
“Either I pay taxes or have my mother live with me,” said Neil Brooks with a sly smile. Brooks, co-author of The Trouble With Billionaires (with Linda McQuaig) underlined the value of taxes during the keynote address at this year’s … Contin…
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Unfair exemptions to employer health tax cost province $2.4 billion annually
Focused on austerity, the government appears to be ignoring tax policies that have the potential to bring in billions to the provincial treasury. The ruthless slashing of public sector funding – including the current freeze on base funding to Ontario’s … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Briefs: Health Coalition Action Assembly November 17-18
The Ontario Health Coalition is holding its annual Action Assembly and Conference on the weekend of November 17-18 at the University of Toronto’s Hart House. The Action Assembly plans the Ontario Health Coalition’s actions and priorities for the coming year. … Continue reading →
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Is competitive bidding in home care done? Let’s hope so.
September 10 Doris Grinspun, executive director of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, tweeted that Health Minister Deb Matthews had just announced to a nursing meeting that the moratorium on competitive bidding in home care would be made permanent. No … Continue reading →
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