Hospital is less for more
TheStar.com – comment/letters – Hospital is less for more
December 12, 2007
New hospital under fire – Dec. 10
I attended the weekend rally in Brampton protesting the inadequate health-care services in our city, and I am not from the South Asian community. Many residents of Brampton from all communities have been deeply concerned about this problem for several years.
William Osler Health Centre CEO Bob Richards and Hilary Short, head of the Ontario Hospital Association, have publicly stated that the public-private partnership (P3) funding model used to construct the Brampton Civic Hospital has no impact on patient care. Government documents detailing this deal, only obtained after a four-year court battle, show otherwise.
These documents revealed that this hospital has cost $340 million more because of the P3 financial model. That much money could have built another badly needed new hospital in our city or opened all of the promised 608 beds in the new hospital now. The people of Brampton know that we are not getting adequate health care, and we also know that our P3 hospital has cost more and delivered less.
We have many questions and we are not getting straight answers. Why do we have less than one hospital bed per 1,000 people in Brampton, while the rest of Canada has nearly three beds per 1,000? Why did our hospital cost more than $880 million, and promise 608 beds and only deliver 479?
Perhaps the key to finding answers is contained in this question: Why are hospital decisions made behind closed doors?
Dora Jeffries, Chair, Ontario Health Coalition, Brampton
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 9:21 am and is filed under Health Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
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