Hundreds protest Ontario health care cuts

The lawns of Queen’s Park were filled today with protesters concerned about the future of health care in Ontario.

In a show of force against premier Kathleen Wynne’s government, the rally was to fight to save community hospitals and to halt the contracting-out of hosptial services. Doctors, nurses and some prominent union heads gathered to voice their displeasure with the moves they say have been brewing in the back corridors of Queen’s Park for some time.

The president of Steelworkers local 1005 in Hamilton, Rolf Gerstenberger, was also there: “Local 1005 is here because we have 9,000 pensioners and 500 members who all need the health care system in Hamilton. And we’re concerned about what’s happening. Shutting beds, cutting the hospital, privatizing different services, so we’re worried down the road, when we need health care it won’t be there for us.”

OPSEU president Warren ‘Smokey’ Thomas: “I’ve asked for decades for the government, and Deb Matthews swore she was going to have it to me in a week. That was a month ago, absolute proof – ‘we can prove to you privatizing of public services will save money’. Prove it to me, if you can prove it to me, you’ll shut me up.”

“Well, she’s never proved it, you know why she’s never proved it? Because it doesn’t save the taxpayers money; it’s a rip-off for the taxpayers. And we all get hosed.”

Some protesters continued to criticize the closure of Lakeview Lodge at Hamilton’s Juravinski Health Centre. Wynne’s government maintains the closure of the accommodations for out-of-town cancer patients is a decision made by Hamilton Health Sciences.