For immediate release
November 3, 2000
King’s Health Centre and the alliance to destroy Medicare
(Toronto) - “The King’s Health Centre is a snap-shot of for-profit, American-style health care - including the fraud and corruption. It’s the model for the Alliance party’s plans for health care in Canada,” said Kathleen Connors of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions.
The King’s clinic became a model for politicians who want to privatize health care, as demonstrated by Ralph Klein and Stockwell Day in Alberta’s Bill 11. While privatization proceeded, the Liberals secretly agreed to let it proceed. They saw the picture and failed to stop it.
“Recently, the CEO of King’s grabbed $100 million - including millions in public OHIP money - and fled. Shamefully, neither Day nor Chretien see any lessons about private accountability from this experience. Now, will the Prime Minister pledge to outlaw the use of public dollars for private health care?”said Shirley Douglas, spokesperson for the Canadian Health Coalition.
King’s in Toronto was the first for-profit hospital on life-support from OHIP funds and other public subsidies. In the words of King’s senior vice-president: ‘... indirect OHIP funding has given King’s a boost. It’s allowed us to start the engine of the King’s Health Centre and get that critical mass in terms of revenue’. (Toronto Star, June 8, 1996).
King’s was the model for the for-profit hospitals in Alberta. Stockwell Day’s government repeatedly referred to the King’s Health Centre as a model for the Health Resource Group private hospital in Calgary. (E.g. Alberta Hansard, May 21, 1997 and May 22, 1997).
The Alberta government and its deputy premier at the time, Stockwell Day, rammed through Bill 11, the first legislation in Canadian history permitting the same physician to practice in both the public and the private systems - a direct road to two-tier health care. “Physicians can now receive a private and a public payment for a medically required publically insured service,” said Connors.
Douglas said that “Stockwell Day, Ralph Klein, and Mike Harris are leading the way to take health care into the private sector. They’re not saying this. There’s just doing it! They are Americanizing the Canadian health system as fast as they can. “Jean Chrétien’s government is letting them do it by not enforcing the Canada Health Act and its ban on user fees and facility fees for insured services.” Connors said ,“Canadians deserve clear answers from all party leaders in this election.”
“Why hasn’t Stockwell Day told the truth about his real choice in health care - a for-profit tier of care?”
“Why hasn’t Jean Chrétien stopped these first steps to Americanize Canada’s public health care system?”
“In spite of clear violations of the Canada Health Act, the federal Liberals have done nothing to stop the King’s and HRG private hospital ‘experiments’. They can’t have it both ways,” said Douglas. “We are asking for Jean Chrétien’s solemn word that if returned to office, his government will stop creeping privatization.”
The Canadian Health Coalition today calls on the Prime Minister to:
- enforce the provisions of the Canada Health Act preventing user fees for hospital services wherever they are delivered;
- prohibit the same physician from receiving a private and a public payment for a medically required insured service
- prohibit the use of public dollars to pay for medically insured services in for-profit hospitals or clinics;
- exclude health and social services from all trade agreements.