A year later, Liberal Jim Bradley still secretive about high death-rate in his government-funded hospital

R. Bobak wrote in "Issues with the NHS run deeper than the hospital location", (St. Catharines Standard, Nov.10, 2008):

"Re: Fort Erie joins call for hospital supervisor, The Standard, Nov. 5.


The recent report by Dr. Jack Kitts said little about nurse shortages, bed shortages or surgery delays.


The Liberals did not explain the reasons for the surgery cancellations that plagued the Niagara Health System.


(In fact, the Liberals just cut millions from their nurse funding promises!)


The Liberals did not explain the health-care failures noted in Ontario auditor Jim McCarter's 2007 report.


The Liberals did not explain why, as Kitts noted, the NHS is underfunded.


The Liberals refuse to explain why their hated health tax hasn't solved the NHS's funding needs.


A Nov. 29, 2007, CIHI study discovered that the NHS's St. Catharines General Hospital had the third-highest patient death-rate in Canada, yet St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley couldn't be bothered to immediately call for an independent investigation into these revelations.


The Liberals pretended nothing was wrong and refused to call the Ombudsman to investigate. What followed was the NHS in-house "review", culminating in the limited-scope Kitts report, which basically rubber-stamped plans the Liberals had already set in motion.


But Bradley -- almost a year later -- has still not publicly explained the reasons for the NHS's high patient-mortality rate, and whether this was linked to his government's funding model.


The arrogance and smug secrecy of this majority Liberal government are shocking. If a supervisor is appointed to take over the NHS (as has happened in other Ontario health systems) then the Ontario Ombudsman could investigate the NHS.


There are systemic problems in not only the NHS, but in Ontario's Liberal-run health monopoly, issues that run deeper than squabbles about the location of a hospital. Not fully understanding what the Liberals have done in the past only means the same problems will reappear.


This Liberal government seems bent to continue to do whatever it can to prevent any investigation of the mess in the NHS."

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Why are Jim Bradley and his Liberal government against health care issues such as allowing greater patient payer and provider choices, against such supposedly-classic-liberal tenets as patient empowerment, and accountability and public scrutiny?

Why do these Liberals cling to their disastrous statist ideology, defending their failing no-choice health monopoly? In what way does restricting patient-payer/provider choice make Jim Bradley's health-scare system better?! Why do we need an archaic OHIP insurance monopoly?

Choice in Ontario's health care market would allow patients to improve service by demanding better service from their chosen provider and rejecting sub-standard offerings: this is the patient/provider relationship of accountability that is completely lost in today's Ontario Liberal government-run, LHIN-insulated, politically-correct, bureaucrat-laden, single-payer universal health care "system".

Hope Ontario's sicko health-care monopoly is not the template which American Democrats have in mind for health-care in the United States.
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