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CWA Activists Travel to Canada To Study Health Care System
Healthcare reform was the focus as Buffalo, N.Y., CWA members and fellow activists headed to Toronto in August to learn how Canada finances and provides health services.
The delegation included health care workers from Nurses United/CWA Local 1168 and CWA Local 1133, members of Jobs with Justice and Buffalo affiliate Coalition for Economic Justice, and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Alliance, a coalition of community, labor and faith-based groups presently fighting to improve the public health system.
The delegation’s goals include better funding and access to health care for America’s 44 million uninsured adults and children, and more focus on job training and placement in the health care industry, to ease the staffing crisis.
Canadian hosts from the Polaris Institute and Ontario Health Coalition held meetings and workshops that provided a closer look at the delivery of care and the influences that threaten the system many Canadians have come to accept as their right.
Touring community health and long-term care facilities, the delegation spoke with workers, labor representatives, senior citizens and community activists to learn from the successes of the Canadian system while sharing their experiences and struggles within the American system.
Discussions revealed a common threat on both sides of the border: As health care dollars are diverted from patient care to increase the profit margin to private companies, it is jeopardizing quality care and the ability to recruit and retain qualified staff.
Canada’s publicly financed, privately delivered health care system aims to provide universal coverage of medically necessary hospital, physician and surgical-dental services and some long-term, home and ambulatory care without direct charges to the patient. But the government has made cuts as health care costs have risen, closing hospitals, eliminating or “delisting” services that were previously insured, and encouraging deregulation and privatization of services. The cost-cutting agenda has paved the way for profit-oriented agencies to enter the market, increasing costs to consumers, many of whom can’t afford it.
At a press conference during the trip, delegates explained their shared purpose. “Our organization has partnered with Canadian activists because we share a common struggle to ensure access to quality health care and quality jobs in the health care sector for all people”, said Patty DeVinney, Local 1168 president. “It is important that we recognize the vested interests of those corporations who are working with governments to deregulate and privatize health care across this continent.”
After the press event, the delegation boarded a bus for a tour that took them past the corporate offices of the area’s largest health privatizers. Outside one office, they passed out leaflets and delivered a letter decrying the corporation’s profit-driven agenda.
“We can learn from the U.S. experience in health care because many of the corporations who are moving into Ontario’s health system are the same profiteers who have driven up costs and limited access to care in the United States,” said Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition.
The delegation included health care workers from Nurses United/CWA Local 1168 and CWA Local 1133, members of Jobs with Justice and Buffalo affiliate Coalition for Economic Justice, and the Los Angeles Metropolitan Alliance, a coalition of community, labor and faith-based groups presently fighting to improve the public health system.
The delegation’s goals include better funding and access to health care for America’s 44 million uninsured adults and children, and more focus on job training and placement in the health care industry, to ease the staffing crisis.
Canadian hosts from the Polaris Institute and Ontario Health Coalition held meetings and workshops that provided a closer look at the delivery of care and the influences that threaten the system many Canadians have come to accept as their right.
Touring community health and long-term care facilities, the delegation spoke with workers, labor representatives, senior citizens and community activists to learn from the successes of the Canadian system while sharing their experiences and struggles within the American system.
Discussions revealed a common threat on both sides of the border: As health care dollars are diverted from patient care to increase the profit margin to private companies, it is jeopardizing quality care and the ability to recruit and retain qualified staff.
Canada’s publicly financed, privately delivered health care system aims to provide universal coverage of medically necessary hospital, physician and surgical-dental services and some long-term, home and ambulatory care without direct charges to the patient. But the government has made cuts as health care costs have risen, closing hospitals, eliminating or “delisting” services that were previously insured, and encouraging deregulation and privatization of services. The cost-cutting agenda has paved the way for profit-oriented agencies to enter the market, increasing costs to consumers, many of whom can’t afford it.
At a press conference during the trip, delegates explained their shared purpose. “Our organization has partnered with Canadian activists because we share a common struggle to ensure access to quality health care and quality jobs in the health care sector for all people”, said Patty DeVinney, Local 1168 president. “It is important that we recognize the vested interests of those corporations who are working with governments to deregulate and privatize health care across this continent.”
After the press event, the delegation boarded a bus for a tour that took them past the corporate offices of the area’s largest health privatizers. Outside one office, they passed out leaflets and delivered a letter decrying the corporation’s profit-driven agenda.
“We can learn from the U.S. experience in health care because many of the corporations who are moving into Ontario’s health system are the same profiteers who have driven up costs and limited access to care in the United States,” said Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition.