For a People’s Recovery, NOT A Corporate Plunder!

YCL-LJC Central Executive Committee, March 2020

This statement was originally published on the Young Communist League of Canada - La Ligue de la jeunesse communiste du Canada homepage


We salute the immense efforts of healthcare workers to combat the COVID-19 pandemic and provide their essential services in a state of emergency. For over 30 years public sector unions and community organisations have struggled against privatisation, job loss, and closures in the healthcare sector. Our public healthcare system was overwhelmed before the outbreak of the global pandemic. Decades of cuts and austerity will leave working people, Indigenous peoples, the unemployed, the elderly, and the poor severely exposed unless emergency action is taken. 

Don't Demonize China! A Report from Chongqing

by Peter Miller, Correspondent in China

Peter Miller also gave an interview for the show "Loud and Clear". You can listen to it here. 

I’m in China during the pandemic and it’s pained me to see anti-Chinese propaganda gaining ground in the West, including Canada.

Instead of blaming China for a virus that knows no borders, we should be looking to China for lessons on how Canada should respond to the COVID-19 crisis. During the height of the crisis in China, both in Chongqing where I live and all over China, residents followed rules on how often they could go out. For me, I could only leave my apartment complex once every two days to go shopping for groceries. This was labelled as "authoritarian" by writers in the Western press, but instead of being authoritarian, it was clearly a measure needed to quell the spread of the virus.

McJobs mean McHealth and McEarly Death

H.G. Watson
Reprinted from Rabble.ca

For a minimum wage worker, how much does it cost to make a nutritious meal?

Let’s assume you’re a meat eater, and that you want at least one carb and one vegetable on your plate. You’ll also probably want something to drink. We’ll also assume you work in Ontario, where the minimum wage is $10.25.

To put together a meal of chicken, potatoes and carrots with milk to drink based on Canada’s average food prices, is going to run you about $16 -- just over an hour and half of work.

Apply the same test to trying to find a bachelor apartment. In Toronto, where the average rental rate is $873 a month, you would have to work 85 hours a month at minimum wage to pay for a bachelor apartment. That's slightly more than half a month's worth of regular, full-time hours. Whatever you have left over goes to food, utilities and other costs.

With that in mind it’s easy to understand why people would opt to take the crappier, yet cheaper, apartment, or perhaps eat off the dollar menu at McDonalds.

And these are just the averages.

Occupy Wall Street Gives Award to Pfizer: “Excellence in Profiteering”

Part of National Day of Action against corporate greed and corruption

New York, NY – February 29 – Healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, and Occupy Wall Street activists gathered outside of Pfizer’s International Headquarters in New York City to protest the world’s largest drug company’s connection to theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a right-wing, corporate-funded think tank that develops and promotes radical pro-corporate laws for state legislators to enact.

Healthcare for the 99%, the working group of Occupy Wall Street that organized the demonstration at Pfizer, pointed out that ALEC promotes bills that limit drug companies’ liabilities for defective products and deceptive marketing, prohibits Americans from importing cheaper drugs from other countries, and prohibits states from negotiating lower prices for drugs, especially for programs like Medicaid.

Health Coalition Action Alert / Alerte Action

Action Alert (November 15, 2010)

Take Action for Health Care

Dear friend,

This week is National Medicare Week, a time to celebrate a defining feature of of our country. Canadians strongly support the core values on which our public health care system is premised – equity and fairness.

There are, however, serious problems that need to be urgently addressed, including lack of access to timely care, home and continuing care, and affordable prescription drugs.

And the Prime Minister has stood idly by as provinces de-list services, allow extra-billing by physicians, and permit the selling of medically-necessary diagnostic services and queue-jumping, all in violation of the Canada Health Act.

We need you to take a moment right now and email the Prime Minister. It only takes 2 minutes. The Prime Minister needs to know that Canadians want action and leadership on health care, and they want the Canada Health Act enforced.

Click here to email the Prime Minister

Sincerely,
– The Canadian Health Coalition Team

Alerte Action (15 novembre 2010)

Agissons pour les soins de santé

Chers amis,

Cette semaine, nous entamons la Semaine nationale de l’assurance maladie, une occasion de célébrer une caractéristique propre de notre pays. Les Canadiens appuient sans réserve les valeurs fondamentales d’équité et de justice sur lesquelles notre système public de santé est fondé.

Toutefois, de sérieux problèmes doivent être traités de façon urgente, notamment le manque d’accès à des soins en temps opportun, les soins à domicile et les soins de longue durée ainsi que les médicaments sur ordonnance à prix abordable.

De plus, le premier ministre est resté muet alors que les provinces ont abandonné l’assurance de certains services, qu’elles permettent la surfacturation des médecins et la vente de services diagnostiques nécessaires sur le plan médical ainsi que le resquillage, des pratiques qui sont toutes une infraction à la Loi canadienne sur la santé.

Nous avons besoin que vous preniez quelques minutes maintenant pour écrire un courriel au premier ministre. Le geste vous prendra à peine deux minutes. Le premier ministre doit savoir que les Canadiens veulent que des mesures soient prises et qu’un leadership soit assumé en matière de soins de santé. Ils veulent aussi que la Loi canadienne sur la santé soit mise en application.

Cliquez ici pour envoyer un courriel au premier ministre

Sincèrement,
L’équipe de la Coalition canadienne de la santé

When privitization kills

Ontario Health Coalition calls for coroner’s inquest, hospital supervisor:
Niagara death of 18-year old raises concerns of public safety as result of
emergency department closures, NHS financial position tantamount to bankruptcy



The Ontario Health Coalition is requesting a coroner’s inquest into the death of Reilly Anzovino after a Boxing Day car accident. Ms. Anzovino was taken by ambulance to Welland because the closest emergency department in Fort Erie was recently closed due to budget cuts. She passed away prior to arriving at the hospital. This is the second death since the emergency department closures in Fort Erie and Port Colborne that has raised questions about whether the closures have contributed to avoidable fatality.



“We wanted to make sure that we were being respectful of the family’s needs and desires and we wanted to make sure that an inquest is warranted. Now that the family has publicly asked for an inquest, and given the questions about whether Ms. Anzovino’s tragedy could have been prevented, we have written to the chief coroner in support of an inquest,” said Natalie Mehra, Director of the Ontario Health Coalition.



“This raises the issue of the human costs of hospital budget cuts across Ontario,” she noted. “Hospital officials, consultants and the government have consistently downplayed the risks associated with closing small communities’ emergency departments. They have even tried to sell the cuts as “improvements” and “quality care”. A number of other communities are facing similar threats of ER closures. But longer travel times and ambulance backlogs mean that the “golden hour” – the time in which medical intervention can save a person’s life or improve their health outcomes – is compromised. The result is higher risk of poor outcomes and even death. We hope that the coroner will put to rest the questions of the family and of the community and will make recommendations to prevent similar heart-breaking events from happening again.”



The Fort Erie Emergency Department was closed and converted into an “Urgent Care Centre” several months ago. The community has been informed that CTAS levels I & II patients (heart attacks, strokes, traumas and other serious emergencies) cannot receive care at the Urgent Care Centre and ambulances have been redirected to the Welland hospital site 43 km away as a result. Since ambulances cannot carry blood – often needed in car accident traumas - there is widespread concern in the community that the removal of the emergency department in Fort Erie is a contributing factor in Ms. Anzovino’s death.



Prior to the closure of the Emergency Departments in Niagara, the Ontario Health Coalition conducted in-depth interviews with 50 paramedics across Ontario. The paramedics were unanimous in their concern about local ER closures and all stated that ambulances cannot replace the functions (including provision of blood and care for traumas) provided in local hospitals’ emergency departments. Every paramedic gave concrete examples of how the plan to close local emergency departments will increase risks for patients, worsen wait times, deprive communities of access to care, or cause poorer care outcomes and even death. The full report “Putting Patients at Risk” can be accessed at: www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca



The Ontario Health Coalition released the report publicly in June 2009 and gave copies to health policy advisors in the Health Minister’s office and in the Premier’s office at that time.



To date, the closures of the emergency departments have not saved any money and the Niagara Health System (the name of the amalgamated hospital corporation covering hospitals in St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Welland, Fort Erie and Port Colborne) is in worse financial shape than ever. According to reports at a LHIN board meeting before Christmas, the hospital has maximized its line of credit and cannot access more debt from its financial organization on its own. It is using capital funds for the new hospital to pay for operations, an untenable situation. The hospital requires significant cash infusions to meet cash flow requirements and is facing a deficit of up to $16 million this year. The hospital is carrying more than $100 million in accumulated debt and must pay to service this. According to the information provided in these reports at the LHIN board meeting in October, the hospital’s financial situation is tantamount to bankruptcy. In addition, there have been repeated calls for a provincial investigation from clinical staff and local political leaders. The coalition is also calling for the province to send in a Supervisor to take over the hospital and sort out the financial and clinical issues.



For more information: Ontario Health Coalition office 416-441-2502.


--
Ontario Health Coalition
15 Gervais Drive, Suite 305
Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8
www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502

NFB film: Bethune

The National Film Board of Canada (well, what's left of it anyway)
has started a new website, nfb.ca that showcases its back catalog of films in the you tube format.

The following film is among many to be found on the site.

Titled "Bethune" it covers the life of the famous lung surgeon and communist. It is a Donald Brittain film, from 1964 and has a run time of 58min 38 sec.



It should be noted that in the CSIS/RCMP security service files on Bethune is a report of Bethune's presentation in Winnipeg's Starland theatre (torn down late last year). Bethune was doing a fund raising tour for his blood transfusion service in Spain. The site of the theatre is now an office complex for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

As much as Bethune fought for socialised medicine in the 1930s, doctors still fight for its survival today.

Mao wrote of Bethune in a famous essay

Niagara police attack protesters as the government sneaks hospital equipment out for profit

Check out this youtube video from a local newscast about Niagara police arresting protesters, including the head of Family Medicine, who were vigiling outside Ft Erie's Douglas Memorial Hospital as the Niagara Health System was sneaking operating room equipment out to move it to a P3 (public-private-partnership ie for profit) hospital an hour's drive away. Over 5,000 Fort Erie residents protested last year and over 1,000 Niagarans have gone to Queen's Park in Toronto to oppose the Ontario government's gutting of local hospitals in favor of corporate profits at new hospitals that have fewer beds for higher costs. Check out the People's Voice Niagara News Bulletin and the Ontario Health Coalition for more info on the issue.