OCHU & UK Expert Warning About Private Health Care Clinics

By Angela Gemmill

The Ontario Council of Hospital Unions is showing how detrimental private surgery and procedure clinics are to our health care, by inviting a former British Health Minister to travel from community to community this week.

Frank Dobson is warning Canadians, and more specifically Ontario residents, about health services becoming more and more privatized…and he wants us to learn from mistakes made in the U-K.

He calls them a bad option for the people of Canada.

Dobson says there are concerns for patient care quality and infection control within the private sector, as well, these clinics can close without notice, leaving patients without the care they requested.

He wants to see the services and procedures brought back ‘in-house’ at hospitals where they can be done properly and at less cost.

Regional V-P for O-C-H-U, Kevin Cook says the campaign and tour is not about job loses for union members but rather about patient care.

He says they want to warn residents about pitfalls to private health care and keep the provincial government from switching more services.

(Picture: Ontario Council of Hospital Unions Regional V-P Kevin Cook and former Health Minister for the United Kingdom Frank Dobson)