By Gazette Staff
September 27th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
The Ontario Hospital Coalition maintains the Ford government is privatizing our public hospitals.
“When they privatized cataract surgeries, Ford appeared all over TV promising that people would never pay with their credit card, only their OHIP card. That was a lie. All over Ontario, seniors are now routinely charged thousands of dollars in the private for-profit eye surgery clinics.
The Coalition focuses on Queen’s Park outside the legislature.
“We heard from an 80-year old woman who was told she had to make a down payment of $1,500 followed by almost $11,000 for her surgery. We heard from a 71-year old who had to come out of retirement to work to pay for his surgery. We heard from Maureen, a widow whose eyesight was failing, who was charged almost $7,000 for her eye surgery. She had to take out a loan. Everywhere I go, every event at which I make a speech, people come up to me and tell me about how their mother or father was charged thousands for their cataract surgery.
“Now, Ford wants to expand his privatization plan to orthopedic surgeries — hips and knees, shoulders and so on — as well as MRIs, CTs and other diagnostics and surgeries. Just imagine the tens of thousands of dollars they are going to charge patients.
“The hardship and suffering caused by this privatization is exactly what public medicare was set up to stop.
“We have made formal complaints, held press conferences with the patients who have been extra-billed illegally, written letters, asked for meetings with the Minister and Premier. It isn’t that they don’t know this is happening. They are pretending it isn’t and ignoring it, as long as they are able to do so.
“We are going to lose public medicare if we don’t ramp up our fight back.
“Please pay attention and spread the word. It matters.”
The coalition has small groups working in towns and cities throughout the province.
They don’t have a group working in Burlington – they couldn’t find the volunteers they needed to help out.
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