A Trojan Horse will tour Ontario.
The Ontario Health Coalition and the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (CUPE/OCHU) are travelling with a 15-foot wooden horse.
The council’s vice president Sharon Richer says it serves as a symbol of the Ford government’s plans to privatize healthcare.
“The Greeks presented a giant horse to the city of Troy as a gift. It was meant to signal the end of the war,” says Richer. “But there were soldiers hiding inside out at night, and they destroyed the enemy.”
“The conservatives are presenting privatization as a gift. They say private clinics will reduce wait times, they will alleviate the crisis in our hospitals, that they will provide the care that people need. Nothing is further from the truth. The plan is deceptive, and it is dangerous for public hospitals.”
Council’s president, Michael Hurley, says the public needs to be aware of what is taking place.
“We want the public to know that the waiting list for cataract surgeries has actually grown since this government privatized surgery, since their largest privatization,” says Hurley.
“We want the public to know that the private centres, like the orthopedic centre in Toronto, are paying staff almost half as much again to go work for them, creating a staffing crisis in the ORs (operation rooms) at the Ottawa Hospital for orthopedics. We want people to know the waiting times are going up. We want them to know that the solution is not privatization. The solution is to invest in our public hospitals. And that’s what we’ll be demanding.”
The horse is scheduled to make 60 stops over the next month.
In northwestern Ontario, visits are scheduled for Rainy River, Emo, Kenora, Sioux Lookout and Geraldton.
Hurley expects other visits may come in the future.
