#privatsation

[canadianabroadvery]

[canadianabroadvery]

“...n 2020, the Ford PC government passed the Connecting People to Home and Community Care Act. It facilitates hospital privatization in two ways. First, it allows the expansion of the small number of for-profit hospitals in Ontario. Private, for-profit hospitals have been frozen for years—but this bill modifies the Private Hospital Act to allow them to expand “home and community care” beds. Apparently, “home and community care” can happen in for-profit institutional facilities nowadays.Similarly, the Act also adds unlicensed “residential congregate care settings” as a location for “home and community care services”—with no restrictions on for-profit operators. Instead of public hospitals, these unlicensed congregate care homes would provide rehabilitative, transitional, or other care.Under the previous Mike Harris PC government, home care was largely privatized. The result was chaotic service and very low wages. OCHU/CUPE had to have a pitched battle with University Health Network (UHN) when they contracted out reactivation services to a home care organization at their Hillcrest site. The PSWs operating the beds were paid $16.50 an hour. While OCHU/CUPE was ultimately able to force UHN to take the work back in-house, many more such projects are underway. Like so much of what Ford is up to, a key goal is to reduce the wages for the female hospital workforce....”