Liberals, lies, and the health-care shuffle

What - all Ontario health-care wait times are decreasing??!! Are you kidding?

Isn't the above May 5, 2009 St. Catharines Standard headline just fabulous?

So, what do Liberal health-care monopolists such as Health Minister David Caplan, or local St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, have to say about the report in the Apr.30, 2009 St. Catharines Standard (see: Shiny new hospital, same old monopolist problems) where Cancer Care Ontario claimed that chemo therapy wait times in Ontario have INCREASED by 10% since 2007?!

Is that wait-time increase a lie?

Caplan now says that "the Ontario Hospital Associaton is reporting to us that in fact wait times are decreasing, and in fact, people are geting better service and better care."

What?

What then, do Caplan or Bradley say of the Apr.18, 2009 report in the St. Catharines Standard (see: Patients forced to wait a day in underfunded ER, while MPP Jim Bradley says nothing about Liberal monopoly health-care failures) where the Ontario Hospital Association claims that in St. Catharines, emergency room patients are waiting nearly an entire day - 23 hours !! - for beds; beds that Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty stated aren't needed here. (see: Time to debunk Liberal health-care myths)

Is that a lie? Is a day-long ER wait what Jim Bradley's Liberals point to as 'better service and care'?! Has Liberal MPP Jim Bradley even bothered to publicly respond at all to the St. Catharines Standard's Apr.30, 2009, or Apr.18, 2009 stories?

Is any one even asking Good Ole Jim for a response?

Caplan is still going on with his we "hired almost 10,000 nurses since coming to office in 2003" Liberal rhetoric - but, is THAT not a murky lie? Where has it been conclusively shown that McGuinty's Liberals ever hired "10,000" (see: Health care is not McGuinty's priority in Niagara) nurses - and what is the definition of "hired" that the Liberals are using, anyway? Are these NEW, full-time real-persons, or theoretical labour-assumptions of temporary 'nursing position' rehires, including normal-cycle employee turnovers? (see how slimy Smitherman slithered around the nurse hiring issue when he was the Liberal health minister: Liberals say fired nurses not neccessarily real people)

The question is, are the Liberals hiring ENOUGH real nurses?

Similarly, Caplan's claim (in the May 5, 2009 St. Catharines Standard) that he's "continuing" to hire more nurses is unproven, vague rhetoric.

How will we verify and measure David Caplan's claims (made in the St. Catharines Standard, Mar.6, 2009) that his Liberal government will be hiring a FURTHER 9,000 MORE nurses?!

How will we know whether Caplan's not lying, even now? His Liberals late in 2008 CUT $50 million in nurse funding! (see: Caplan plays coy about further cuts in his Liberal health-monopoly; see: Liberal health-care promises more nursing cuts; see: Liberals cut nurse funding; break another health-care promise)

Caplan further boasts that his supposed "decreased wait times" are due to some vague "multi-pronged approach", and not to the nurse union's claim that wait times are being shortened because ER patients are simply MOVED INTO THE HALLWAY - thereby decreasing the wait time!! There you go; that's the solution - job well done! You're no longer officially "waiting" in the hospital ER, Ma'am - you're now officially just parked on a stretcher in the hallway! Please, enjoy your stay in TommyDouglasLand.TM

As I wrote in Shiny new hospital, same old monopolist problems, it's good thing, too, that Jim Bradley (who you can bet will be reminding us in future campaign pamphlets of his super-human efforts to personally build the new St. Catharines hospital, despite having said ten years ago, in the St. Catharines Standard, back on May 29, 1999, [see: Liberals underfund Niagara health-care while denying link to high patient death-rate in St. Catharines] that we "can't easily get by with one active-treatment hospital") has wisely allowed for his new regional hospital to have spacious hallways - all the better to pack waiting patients into.

Regarding the issues of the ER-to hallway-wait-time-shuffle, and the nurse position-shuffling, Caplan now says "We're not hearing that from our partners in the hospital association... we are not seeing evidence of that kind of a situation."

NO EVIDENCE? What blatant audacity, coming from the health minister himself! Caplan's Liberals avoid having a true independent investigation into their health monopoly's Byzantine tentacles. Has Caplan allowed an independent investigation into the scores of problems in his Liberal health care monopoly? (see: Liberals hide like cockroaches from Ombudsman's light) Patients have to resort to taking Ontario's McGuinty Liberals to court due the failures inherent in McGuinty's health monopoly! (see: Canadian health-care: go wait in line and die if necessary)

Having stated all this - Caplan's secretive Ontario Liberals continue to deny the Ombudsman from having FULL indepedent, investigative access to the Liberal's health care monopoly. It's hard to cite evidence when you can also block any investigation!! It's hard to know when and whether unionized or politicized special interest groups are telling the truth, in order to better their positions of influence in their cozy health monopoly.

Patients continue to be shuffled around as Liberals shuffle fast and loose with their authoritarian, failing health care monopoly.