Kathleen Wynne's Ontario Liberals implement HoskinScare TM health-care cuts

Further to this previous post...
Let's move forward to Chris Malette's Nov.21, 2015 Inside Belleville Metroland Media report about health-care cuts being implemented in Belleville, Ontario, where the QHC "admitted that the news was difficult to announce. The restructuring is intended to allow QHC to remove $11.5 million in expenses next year in order to operate within its reduced funding levels from the province. This includes a $7-million reduction in administration/support departments and $4.5 million in patient care areas, QHC said"
This is the EXACT same duplicitous healthcare-cutting template, which the Liberals followed in Niagara!

Liberal healthcare hack Hoskins is doing the same things that Smitherman, Caplan, and Matthews did before him.

The healthcare budget is set at the whim of health minister Eric Hoskins' monopolist Liberals - therefore, cuts need to be made... end of story!

As an Ontario patient, you have no other choice -
this is HoskinScare TM for you - thanks Dr. Eric!

And: isn't it sadly funny, how Metroland writer Chris Malette didn't even mention the words Kathleen Wynne, Liberal, or Eric Hoskins, in his story!! It's as if... let's see... oh yeah: it's as if Liberals have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT !!!
Wow!! Nice 'reporting' - anyone reading this Metroland Media half-story would never know that any Liberal had anything to do with these health care cuts!!! Amazing!!! Malette's article is the kind of article that could be found in Postmedia's St.Catharines Standard, where MPP Jim Bradley and his Liberal policies have been routinely babied and coddled by the local press, for decades!!!
I'm sure that if this same scenario had unfolded under 'harris', it would have been gleefully noted dozens of times per Metroland article!! (Metroland Media never lets readers down, eh, Mr. Beland Honderich?!)
Here's Belleville's MPP, Progressive Conservative Todd Smith, speaking about the QHC cuts - isn't it funny that Metroland Media reporter Malette didn't even ask the local MPP for an interview!!!
MPP Todd Smith said:
"Fall is in the air and because it is, that can only mean one thing: Another round of cuts and staff uncertainty at Quinte Healthcare hospitals. To make up for an $11.5-million funding shortfall created largely because Ontario’s Liberal government can’t manage money, jobs and services will be cut at hospitals in Picton, Belleville, Bancroft and Trenton. Money is being spent on debt that people in Prince Edward–Hastings want spent on the services they need in their hospitals.
This morning, we learned that in order to close the $11.5-million shortfall, QHC is proposing a reduction of nearly all surgery services at Trenton Memorial, $4.5 million in direct care cuts and changes that one QHC executive calls “very hard on our staff.”
During the years of this government, QHC has been the recipient of almost continual funding shortfalls from the ministry.
Speaker, if I could, I’d like to direct some comments directly to my constituency back at home: The deficit this government is running is costing you your health care services. QHC has had to come up $25 million in cuts over four years to make up for funding shortfalls because the Liberal government at Queen’s Park doesn’t have any money left. The government says money is going into better home care services but the Auditor General says services are being cut there too to pay for fat-cat salaries.
The third largest expense in the budget is how much we pay to service our debt and it’s also the fastest growing.
That’s why cuts like this have gone from being rare to happening annually."

Yet if one reads only Malette's Metroland Media 'report', one would think - as residents of Niagara were similarly conditioned to believe by their local media - that it was just the board of the local hospital making all these 'decisions'!
The link to the Ontario Liberal government's direct monopolist diktat of health-care cuts is not clearly made, at all!!
This is Liberal healthcare duplicity, in its finest most despotic mode.
Let's note again - before Liberal monopoly-supporting, single-payer-defending sycophants start deflecting blame onto the QHC - that the blame squarely belongs to Kathleen Wynne's health-cutting, monopoly-pushing Liberals.
As similarly happened in Niagara, the NHS and the NHS's CEO were conveniently targeted as scapegoats for implementing what were purely Liberal-mandated monopolist health-care cuts.
In Niagara, local Liberal MPP Jim Bradley sat back and smiled contentedly as the local media spun blame onto the NHS - while all along it was Bradley's duplicitous Ontario Liberal government which created the phony budgets and the phony budget cuts in order to manipulate the health-care cuts.
Remember the meme: health-care cuts are 'good' when monopolist Liberals or the NDP do it!

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Let's fast forward to this Oct.24, 2021 CBC story, which is ostensibly about former PM Jean Chretien talking about Justin Turdo. It's astounding how CBC treats the dictator hack Cretin with such reverence.

We know (but the CBC fails to mention) the DIRECT LINK between Cretin's and Paul Martin's downloading of healthcare funding onto the provinces.

This DIRECTLY impacted Ontario's monoploy state-funded, single-payer health system.

 The resultant fallout was that Ontario's Liberal MPP's quickly began blaming the province for 'healthcare cuts' - which their own federal Lib colleagues set in motion). The "Conservatives cut health care" narrative /meme / lie was thus created and happily propagated by the leftist media. Crapbags such as Liberal MPP Jim Bradley in Niagara was one of  many Ontario MPP Libs who benefitted from the disaster that their own federal colleagues created. They spewed the "Conservatives cut health care" lie for years.

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Liberals Kathleen Wynne and MPP Jim Bradley deny cancer drugs to Ontario mother

As Global News (Oct.28, 2013) reported, Kathleen Wynne's Ontario Liberals are denying cancer-treating drug therapy to a Milton, Ontario, mother.

Yes, you read this correctly: this is the single-payer-pushing, monopoly-enforcing Ontario Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne which is denying the cancer-treatment drug Avastin to an Ontario patient.

This is also St.Catharines Liberal hack MPP Jim Bradley who is denying cancer treatment to Ontario citizens. (This is the same Liberal hack Jim Bradley who would like you to believe that... ummm... that it's Mike Harris doing this..!)

But you will NOT hear a peep of concern about this from the Jim Bradley Fan Club (aka St.Catharines Standard). After all, what's any of this gotta do wid Ole Jimmy, anyways - right??!!  Far be it for Grant Lafleche, Doug Herod, or Don Fraser to bother asking Ole Jim Bradley about why his Liberals are denying cancer treatment to Kimm Fletcher.

Feh: this ain't got nothin' ta do wid our boy Jim Bradley! Liberal Jimmy means well! Why should we bother Ole Jimmy?!

And after all - doncha know? - the 'Planet Is In Peril', according to the St.Catharines Standard and Jim Bradley!

After all - doncha know?! - Liberal MPP Jim Bradley is gallantly Battling Evil Conservatives and Oil Barons!! Jim Bradley is Fighting Climate Change to Save The Earth from DOOOOOOOMM!!!

That is what is important here: to divert readers' attention from Ole GreenFear Jimmy's role in denying cancer treatment to Ontario patients, and thereby exposing - once again - MPP Jim Bradley's Liberal healthcare duplicity!! Why, it's just best that the local Niagara press not write about it!! Why bring attention about Ontario's cruel Liberal Environment Minister Jim Bradley being more interested in the Planet than the patient - right?!

Ontario's Liberals do not want Ontarians to ask about, or to remember, why Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin had to investigate the "cruel" McGuinty government's pathetic behaviour in the Suzanne Aucoin case: see Liberal Healthcare Duplicity - pages 8, 9, 45, 56, 62 ,69, 70, 71, 72 ,73 ,74, 75.

Niagara's Liberal-ass-kissing press won't be asking Ole Liberal Jim Bradley about the parallels between Kimm Fletcher's struggles with Wynne's Liberals now, and Suzanne Aucoin's struggles with McGuinty's Liberals several years ago. (After all, who was Suzanne Aucoin, anyway?! What's she got to do with any of this?! see here; here)

Of course, Kathleen Wynne knows all about Ombudsman Andre Marin's report regarding Suzanne Aucoin: Wynne was a loyal Liberal MPP from day one - from 2003 - happily and proudly supporting Smitherman's and McGuinty's dirty drug-denying-deeds.

Wynne stood proudly with her Liberal colleagues Bradley, McGuinty and Smitherman, while they refused to call a C.diff inquiry in Ontario, when hundreds of infected patients were dying!

Wynne proudly cheered as Greg Sorbara raised the McGuinty health tax, after her lying Liberals campaigned on NOT raising any taxes!

Wynne was a very proud Liberal when her Dear Leader Dalton McGuinty walked away from cancer patient Mike Brady! (What... have y'all forgotten about that proud moment of Ontario Liberal smarm?! Kathleen and Jim Bradley hope that you'd forget!)

Wynne was a proud Liberal when McGuinty abandoned the people of Caledonia; when her Ontario Liberals passed their secret G-20 law; when her Liberals were using secret-code names to vapourize a billion dollars from Ontario's treasury, in order to to buy themselves  an election.

Wynne was proud of her Liberal government's disgusting deeds. Wynne was already in McGuinty's cabinet when Ombudsman Marin released his Aucoin report, which called McGuinty's Liberal healthcare system a "cruel game". 

Now, Liberal Premier Kathleen "Cruella" Wynne is proudly playing the very same "cruel game" with patients' lives, which her hallowed predecessor Dalton McGuinty had played.

Obviously, Niagara's Liberal-besotted press can't bring any of that up, eh?!

Unless it would be to try to make Wynne or Jim Bradley look good - which is exactly what Niagara's press did manage to pull off with Bradley vis-à-vis Aucoin: portray Liberal hack Jim Bradley as some kind of hero in Aucoin's struggle, rather than examine Jim Bradley as one of the main perps causing her troubles, due to his single-payer-pushing monopolism.

Jim Bradley and his Liberal monopolists WERE the 'problem' when it came to Aucoin's dilemma; yet Bradley was carefully rehabilitated in the press and somehow portrayed as having nothing to do with any of it!! Now, it looks like Ole Katy - the McGuinty cruel clone - has nothin' to do with it either.

No St. Catharines Standard Sun Media reporter will dare ask Katy Cruella Wynne about why her Liberals are denying cancer treatment to this Ontario patient!! Lafleche and the other Standard hacks have had weeks to ask Premier Cruella or Jim GreenFear Bradley about it.

The St.Catharines Standard's Bradley Laundry Team still hasn't yet unwrapped Ole Jim from his last Cone Of Silence treatment, surrounding Jim Bradley's reaction to the Auditor's gas-plant report! There has been NO local coverage of Jim Bradley's reaction to the revealed billion-dollar-plus cost of Jim Bradley's GreenFear-instigated bungled gas-plant/seat-buying fiasco!

How many cancer patients would have benefitted had Ontario not been subjected to the horrendous costs of Bradley's and Smitherman's GreenFear fiascos?
Rest assured: No-one from the St.Catharines Standard will dare ask Ole Liberal Buddy EnviroJimmy about that!! (...of course, the Standard  hacks would be earnestly and busily asking all kinds of questions - - - had it been a Conservative government minister..!)

Yep: it's just that easy in Niagara for Liberal MPP Jim Bradley to pull his BS over and over for three decades, and get a free pass while doing so.


- Just look at Doug Herod's fine piece of Bradley worshipping-stenography in the Nov.2, 2013 St.Catharines Standard.
Egads:
- was Doug finally going to ask EnviroJimmy about how Jimmy's GreenFear bolshevism led to Ontario's Liberal billion-dollar gas-plant scandal, which caused the resignation of Dalton McGuinty?
Yowzers:
- was Doug finally going to reveal Bradley's reaction to the Auditor's gas-plant report?
Gosh:
- was Doug finally going to ask Jim Bradley about his still-secret-as-of-2013 "scientific proof" for AGW?
Yikes:
- was Doug about to ask why Jimmy and his Liberals are still denying cancer care drugs to Ontarians, the way Bradley and his Liberals had done to Suzanne Aucoin??
Sheesh:
- don't worry about Doug bothering Good Ole Jimmy with pesky questions about any o' that!!
Nope:
- all we got from Doug was a predictable puff-ball non-story (...y'know, the kind Don Fraser would do...) of dinosaur Bradley waxing on about the Good Ole prehistoric days, when politics (apparently to Jimmy) were "more jovial" and "people were buddies with one another even though they were of different political stripes, as opposed to trying to kick each other in the groin".
Funny:
- Doug Herod never reported asking Buddy Liberal MPP Jim "I hate doctors" Bradley about how many groins Bradley has kicked.
Yep:
- Doug Herod, loyal Standard stenographer, blissfully left Bradley's kumbaya BS unchallenged! Why, gosh, if Jimmy said it, it must be true; therefore, it cannot... MUST NOT... be questioned!!
Why, golly, Doug Herod was just dutifully helping zip Ole Liberal Jim Bradley into yet another comfy Cone of Silence!!!

It is as if the act of questioning Liberal Jim Bradley's failing, hypocritical health monopolism was/is kryptonite - anathema - to the personal agendas of Jimmy's Fan Club.
When it came time for examining Jim Bradley's sordid Liberal politics, Liberal-parroting stenography took precedence over journalism in Niagara's press. Often, this well-crafted, thoughtfully-spun, Lib-friendly biased stenography is still simply passed off as being 'journalism', no other viewpoints need apply. Criticism of Jim Bradley's Liberal politics is not appreciated, practically verboten.


- Just look at Grant Lafleche's masterfully phony "editorial" in the Oct.23, 2013 St.Catharines Standard, whining on about "home care funding" - yet LaFleche purposefully neglects to mention anything about the Ontario Liberal government, or of local St.Catharines monopoly-pusher Liberal Jim Bradley!
Lafleche carefully alludes to "the" or to "our" "government" and its "hollow" promises, but Gaia-darn-it, Ole Grant just can't bear to mention Jim Bradley's or Deb Matthews' Liberal roles in any of this!
Now, that's some finger-lickin'-good Warren Kinsella-zation at work in Niagara's press!  Give Ole Grant anudder award!!

Hypocrite Liberal MPP Jim Bradley is the one 'kicking' Ontario's cancer patients 'in the groin' -  but you can't trust that a St.Catharines Standard columnist would dare write about that.


- Just look at another earlier laughable Grant Lafleche "report", "NHS faces $12 million shortfall; No new funding; savings must come from within" (St.Catharines Standard, Oct.10, 2013), where Grant slants his "report" and purposefully fails to mention that it is Ontario's LIBERAL government which is underfunding the Niagara Health System!!

Ole Grant LaFleche flushed that fact down the propaganda toilet!
Gawrsh - why drag any Liberals into this - eh, Grant?! What could Liberal health-care-monopoly-pushing hack Jim Bradley have to do with any of this... eh, Grant?!

LaFleche didn't mention that it is Liberal Kathleen Wynne now underfunding the NHS, just as Liberal McGuinty had done before her, through the Liberal LHIN bureaucracy, which McGuinty and Smitherman had created. What's that gotta do wid any o' dis - right Grant?!

LaFleche didn't mention that the NHS is being underfunded (not by "Queen's Park", as Ole Grant likes to deceptively spin it) but by Kathleen Wynne's Liberals with the fawning support of Andrea Horwath and her NDP socialist enablers!!
Good Ole Grant conveniently doesn't see any connection here, between his story, and the political single-payer-pushing enablers who have allowed the underfunding to continue! Nothing to see here folks... move along now. Hey: lookit Rob Ford! Lookit!! Way over there... Lookit!!!


In fact, this is not a "new" story at all: the same underfunding crap has been going on with Ontario's Liberal healthcare monopolists and the NHS for nearly a decade now.

LaFleche - of course! - did not bother to get local Niagara Liberal hack MPP Jim Bradley to explain why his Liberals continually manage to underfund Niagara's hospital system, yet at the same time (in order to ...ummm... "save the planet") Jim Bradley's Liberals manage to blow a billion bucks on their GreenFear-propagated gas-plant fiasco.

Great Gaia - why would Ole Grant bother askin' Ole Jimmy any o' dis stuff...?!
The Standard isn't allowed to ask Liberal Jim Bradley anything about 'righting' his own Liberal wrongs!! hahaha  (...and this is nothing new for LaFleche!)

LaFleche writes: “There is still a lot of work to do on this, obviously, but we are going to have to make big and bold decisions,” interim CEO Sue Matthews said.

Matthews said the NHS has a clear process that dictates how it can trim money from the budget. The NHS first looks to increase revenue, including parking fees, cafeteria prices, rent and other services. Next, it can look at cutting back administration and support services, which also includes infection control, laundry, food services and hospital management. "

LaFleche - strangely hahahaha - doesn't bother asking anybody - certainly not any Liberal - about Sue Matthews' cost-cutting comments, and LaFleche just let the comment about cutting back on infection control, slide right by, without any examination whatsoever!!

Yep: can you imagine the smug, sanctimonious uproar from the St.Catharines Standard's Bradley Shoeshine Club, had this been said by an NHS official while a Conservative government was in power?!

We'd never the hear the end of the Bradleyites bleating about it!

Yet - under Jim Bradley's watch - talk about cutting infection control in Liberal-monopoly-enforced hospitals is simply just sloughed off, simply ignored, simply goes unchallenged by the St.Catharines Standard Bradley Butt Kisser!!!
Suddenly: no-one cares! Isn't that astounding?!
Better give Grant anudder coupla awards... cuz, gosh, he deserves them!!


- LaFleche - strangely hahahaha - didn't even bother to interview St.Catharines hack Mayor Brian McMullan about any of this, either.
After all: the Standard liked to get Mayor McFullofit to blab on about healthcare, when it was convenient to have a proxy for Jim Bradley, while Bradley was warmly wrapped in one of his many media-enabled Cones Of Silence!
Why didn't LaFleche provide any comments from Mayor McFullofit this time?!

After all, we should recall how Mayor Brian McFullofit was sanctimoniously blabbering in June of 2011 (during Niagara's Summer of Liberal C. difficile Death) about how he wanted to know why the C. difficile outbreak happened in Niagara, and how to prevent it from happening again!!

Yes: that's what the supposedly-oh-so-concerned St.Catharines hack Mayor Brian McMullan was saying in June of 2011; yet, hypocrite McMullan never bothered to actually do something about it at the time, such as demand that a public inquiry be called into the Liberal's deadly C. difficile fiasco.

Mayor Brian McMullan just needed to pretend that he 'wanted to know how it happened', but really, Mayor McFullofit didn't give a sh!t about how it happened, neither then, nor now. It was just baseless rhetoric. It was all a show.

And so now - in 2013 - when the cutting of hospital infection control in St.Catharines rears its ugly head again - St.Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan - the shameful hypocrite hack - buries his head in the sand, and now has nothing to say about it!
But, oohhhh, just two years ago, how desperately Mayor McFullofit had wanted us to believe that he cared...
that he cared so much...
and that he cared oh-so deeply...
and that he really 'wanted to know how the outbreak started'...
and that he really 'wanted to know how to prevent it'!
What utter pretension, what utter crap! What a con!

Yet now, the St.Catharines Standard cannot bring itself to ask St.Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan if he's concerned about the NHS's recent talk about cutting infection control measures vis-à-vis Liberal underfunding!
Can't dare criticize Jim Bradley's Liberal single-payer health-care despotism, y'see.

When it comes time to discussing infection control in Jim Bradley's Liberal health monopoly, you can trust that the Jim Bradley Fan Club in St.Catharines will loyally cover up for their Boy Bradley, in the same way the Standard disgustingly covered up for Jim Bradley during the NHS's Summer of C. difficile Death.
(Lafleche himself reported in one of his stories ("C.diff is back: Outbreak in Falls", St.Catharines Standard, Dec.8, 2011) about Sue Matthews at that time saying that 'maintaining enhanced infection control measures at NHS sites will cost about $1 million annually' - and this was above what the 2011 Summer of  Liberal C.diff Death hard dollar costs were. Lafleche reported that Matthews in Oct. 2011 had said that the costs of  that killer Niagara NHS outbreak were estimated at $1.5 to 2 million. Yet, by 2013, Lafleche failed to mention any of that stuff from 2011! When Sue Matthews brought up the spectre of hospital infection cuts in 2013, why didn't Lafleche refer back to his OWN 2011story, and question Matthews about that very same important topic? Lafleche ignored the issue of infection control cuts under Liberal rule, and let it just slide by...)

Ontario Liberals Dalton McGuinty, George Smitherman, and Jim Bradley denied cancer coverage to Suzanne Aucoin, until Ontario's Ombudsman had to investigate the matter; now Liberals Kathleen Wynne, Deb Matthews, and Jim Bradley are doing that again with Kimm Fletcher.

It's the same thing, all over again - it's Aucoin-Redux. It's George Smitherman morphing into Deb Matthews; its Deb Matthews channeling Smitherman. It's Groundhog Day starring health-monopoly hack Jim Bradley. It's Jim Bradley and his healthcare-denying bait-and-switch Deja-Vu Revue. Guess the same Ombudsman will now have to investigate this case as well. At least Andre Marin has seen this health-horror-movie before, and is now familiar with the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals' two-faced tactics.

Niagara's press is surely already developing angles to shield, cover, and divert attention away from their glittering jewel Jimmy Bradley.

Once again, the press' protective Cone of Silence will be lovingly lowered upon Liberal MPP Jim Bradley by his fifth-columnist sycophants.
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See writer Lori Williams' plea to the Liberal health-care-cutter Kathleen Wynne http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/5768423-dear-kathleen-wynne-please-find-this-woman-a-hospital-bed/ (Hamilton Spectator, Jul.31, 2015):
"Dear Ms. Wynne:

I am writing you today in regards to Laura Hillier, the young woman in Burlington who, with intense treatment, is currently in remission from acute myelogenous leukemia. She is 18 years of age and just recently graduated in my daughter's class from Nelson High School.

Laura and her family were elated to find out that there was more than one match for Laura to move forward for a stem cell transplant recently. Imagine what that kind of news felt like for Laura and her loved ones! Except that they very quickly found out that Laura would not be imminently receiving the transplant due to a lack of beds. What a blow this must have been to them.

The chemotherapy drug that Laura needs to endure to keep her cancer in remission has already caused permanent damage to her vision. It caused a brain infection that spread to her retina. Having this treatment again for an extended period of time while waiting for a bed seems unruly and cruel to put it mildly and may result in further damage or even worse.

Although I do not know Laura, I know of the worry and struggles of someone battling this horrible disease called cancer.

Through my daughter Meghan, I know that Laura is not only an incredible student but also an incredible person. She has set an example to her graduating class of how life should be lived by everyone. Her positivity, infectious personality and zest for life shaped approximately 400 students at Nelson and as an extension, their families as well.

I have never met Laura but I partially credit her for showing my daughter how life should be approached which is a quality that is invaluable especially as Meghan moves on to university in the fall. As I sit here thinking of all the planning that comes from sending your child off to university, I can't help but think of Laura.

I have always taken for granted that Meghan would go through elementary school, high school and then university and we are fortunate that all of this has occurred. All parents think of this, but that has not been the case for Laura's mom, Frances Hillier. Instead of getting ready for university, Laura is in the fight for her life; instead of Frances thinking about meal plans, supplies she needs and Skyping with her daughter, she is worried that a bed will not become available in time to save her precious daughter's life.

I have read all the articles on wait-lists, the different kinds of stem cell transplants and the "strained system" but that is little comfort to Laura and her family. We are fortunate to live in a country where we pride ourselves on equality and justice for all. We need to do everything in our power to find this young lady a bed so she can move on with her treatment. I implore you to provide the necessary support this family needs to provide Laura the provisions to move forward with her stem cell transplant.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Lori Williams

Lori Williams is a Burlington mother.""
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Does any Ontario Liberal - such as Liberal MPP Jim Bradley - care about any of this?!?
Patients suffering in Ontario - who cares about that?
Liberal hacks Jim Bradley and Kathleen Wynne have a Planet To Save!!
By July, 2015, Kathleen Wynne, on behalf of the provincial Ontario Liberal Party, was busy polluting a federal election campaign with her disgusting ideology (and acting as a proxy for Justin Trudeau) rather than acknowledge and rectify the demonstrably colossal failure of her own disgusting Liberalism in Ontario.
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Obamascare disinformation

Here's a site with some links (ok... ok... a couple hundred links!) about Obamacare that Democrats might not want you to read:

see http://www.medicalprogresstoday.com/mpt_commentary/

Enjoy. Pass it on. UPDATE: apparently this site link is now not working; it was from the Manhattan Institute, so perhaps it exists somewhere at their site.
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Niagara should opt of OHIP, declare a medicare-monopoly-free zone

Several good health-care related letters appeared recently in our local papers: Lynn McCleary wrote in "Cutting nurses will not improve care provided by the NHS", (St. Catharines Standard, Feb.9, 2009):
"Re: NHS cutting 90 jobs,The Standard, Feb. 4.
As an RN, I am disappointed with the Niagara Health System decision to eliminate 50 nursing positions.
It is understandable that with 75 vacant positions, eliminating nursing positions may seem like an easy solution to the budget crunch. The explanation that nurses will not lose jobs, rather they will fill vacant positions or take early retirement, may be reassuring to nurses who work at the NHS but it does not reassure me that quality health-care services can be maintained in the long term -- or costs decreased in the short term.
Eliminating positions does not eliminate work. If the NHS follows other hospitals down this path, the work will be done by existing nurses at overtime rates, increasing costs. In the long term, eliminating positions threatens the nursing workforce. The health-care system is at risk because 24,000 Ontario RNs are aged 55 or older, poised to retire.
The 75 vacant positions in Niagara are an indication of things to come, when we may not be able to fill vacancies created by retiring nurses. Just when hospitals like ours in Niagara need strong leadership from the provincial government to ensure an adequate supply of nurses, what we get is provincial backtracking on commitments to create new nursing positions and pressure to balance budgets by paying the price with bigger problems down the line.
Hospitals are being forced by the province into penny wise, pound foolish actions. We should be encouraging nurses to keep working, not encouraging early retirement.
Even in tough economic times, we need to chose to support the healthcare system by ensuring an adequate nursing workforce."
*
Let's remember (because McCleary doesn't bother to mention it) that it is a Liberal government which is cutting nurses in Niagara, and which also recently cut 50 million dollars from provincial nurse training!

Have we forgotten how, during the Oct.2008 federal election, certain folks, along with a more-than-willing press, got outrageously indignant about federal arts funding, where $45 million was re-allotted throughout Canada? Yes, an unreal brouhaha was made over that; yet, when Ontario's Liberal liars over at McGuinty and Co. cut $50 million (and that's only in Ontario) of promised nurse funding from their failing health-monopoly - no-one cared!!!

Good Ole Jim Bradley, St. Catharines Liberal MPP, and proud health-care monopolist-hypocrite, spent years making allegations about so-called Harris cuts, yet, it's Jimbo's own Liberals who are blatantly cutting health-care.

They are using the same old 'we-are-cutting-health-care-to-save-health-care' rhetoric which Michael Decter, Bob Rae's NDP deputy health-minister, used during Ontario's Great Socialist Darkness of the early 1990's.

This is an incomprehensible, ideologically-based conceptual contradiction: oxymoronic limited universality in tandem with a needlessly oppressive (to the point of being cruel) prohibition on private health-care, all enforced by the single-payer-monopoly-pushing state.
It's a mockery of its own intent; a false image of unaccountable promises painted with irresponsible rhetoric.

McCleary talks about "provincial backtracking"... isn't that a euphemism for the McGuinty/Caplan/Bradley gang's Liberal LIES?

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Peter Genovese wrote in "We should expect more from our health system, (St. Catharines Standard, Feb.9, 2009): "Re:160 on waiting list for home care, The Standard, Jan. 29
This article has brought up several important points regarding home-care services. The Community Care Access Centre has seen a steady increase in need for home-care services and the current fiscal year's budget can't properly fund this need.
To prevent running a deficit, a waiting list has been created, currently at 163 clients in Niagara. What will the waiting list be by March 31, the end of the fiscal year? And will this problem not compound in the next fiscal year if funding is inadequate for the service demand?
The clients who are on the waiting list are deemed low priority -- they are not surgical (hip/knee replacements). They are still clients who require exercise, balance re-training, gait aid assessments, safety assessments, home adaptive equipment assessment, etc.
How many clients on the waiting list will have to be admitted to or re-admitted to hospital due to a decrease in health status that may result from not receiving home care? What cost do these clients potentially pose to the health system?
Since the Liberal provincial government has been in power, it has raised our taxes (health-care tax) and has increased the annual health spending to about 50 per cent of the total Ontario budget. But we have waiting lists for home care, the eventual downgrading of the emergency rooms in Fort Erie and Port Colborne and many issues in this region regarding the state of our healthcare system.
We should expect more from the way our health care is funded and managed. We need to demand this from our government before the current situation turns into a health-care crisis."
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Taxes up, service down; yet patient-pawns trapped in McGuinty's health-care monopoly have no choice.

Liberals are happy. "Look at us, we are spending..." they will graciously point out, "...on your behalf! We are taxing and spending - on your behalf! We are cutting, on your behalf, to save us from having to spend more..." The logic becomes convoluted and murky.

Liberal MPP Jim Bradley can't be bothered to explain his own health monopoly's failures. Will he bother to answer Genovese's questions? Bradley continues plodding on the same old failing socialist monopoly course. It is a failing Liberal fantasy that only a BIG STATE GOVERNMENT MONOPOLY knows best how to mimic the real health-care choices of a free-market.
Ontario's Liberals didn't bother to respond to Niagara concerns about Niagara's ER/bed shortage issue: two years ago (in the St. Catharines Standard, Sept.30, 2006) Dalton McGuinty himself dismissed that his Liberals would do much about it - see: Jim "Crackpot" Bradley's Liberal realism.



Genovese's concerns might have been different now had McGuinty and Bradley got off their butts two years ago and actually did something other than make soothing, grandiose 'Big Brother' rhetorical health-care pronouncements, without substance or any attached responsibility. Hey - SO WHAT if some patient dies waiting in a McGuinty-underfunded ER, or sits all day in an unchanged diaper in a Liberal underfunded nursing home? McGuinty is held harmless! MPP Jim Bradley, unbelievably, suddenly has nothing to do with health-care!!

*
Pat Scholfield wrote in "NHS helped create problem with ALC patient overload", (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):
"In response to the article in The Leader that stated a new report adds weight to the argument by the Niagara Health System that people who have no business being in a hospital are clogging up chronic care beds which leads to lengthy delays in getting treated at hospital emergency rooms:
Does the NHS leadership remember several times over the past few years they have reduced beds as a cost saving measure, while at the same time telling us it would not affect service?
On March 29, 2006, former NHS chair Paul Leon told us bed closures don't mean service reductions. This article notes a year ago the health system originally targeted 60 beds for closure at its three largest hospitals throughout Niagara as part of its plans to cut $19 million in spending. "The standards are being maintained. No services are being cut and we're going to meet our targeted balanced budget by 2007," Leon said.
Around the same time, recently resigned NHS Chief of Staff Dr. William Schragge stated, "Beds do not equal service. The number of inpatient beds is no longer an accurate reading of health-care delivery. In fact, we have seen an overall increase in health-care delivery with 60 fewer beds across the system."
Why is the NHS closing hospital beds until we find a workable solution for these alternate level of care patients, especially when the ALC patients across Niagara are nearly double the provincial average and when bed shortage is such a huge problem?
To a layman like myself, it appears the NHS has implemented bed closing measures which have helped to create the ER backlog monster we are currently experiencing in Niagara."
*
... and you know, if you ask Liberal MPP Jim Bradley (who's not a layman, he's a long-time Liberal supporter of state-run monopoly health-care) these questions, a smug Bradley won't bother to answer them! Yet his Liberals have been running the show for five years!

*
Margaret Ferland wrote in "Why do we need centres of excellence?" (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):

"The Niagara Health System's problems and plans are becoming a major problem for taxpayers.
The NHS would like us to believe we are going to benefit from the centres of excellence for ophthalmology and urology. The fact is Welland has always had excellent ophthalmologists and urologists on staff, and that was never a problem.
Why do we need a centre of excellence? To entice people from other areas?
The fact is we need services we use on a daily basis, like pediatrics, obstetrics and psychiatry, which the NHS has so generously given to St. Catharines. We are expected to share the taxes for this, and to add insult to injury, it is contingent upon a transit system being built and maintained in seven municipalities.
The NHS is going to have to do more than hire a couple of public relations experts and a few full-page ads in the local newspapers to convince the taxpayers that this is cost-effective, let alone makes any common sense."

*
Common-sense... oh, now there's a phrase that Liberal hack Jim Bradley just loves to deride! Bradley's Liberals don't understand common-sense; it's all bans and statism with these clowns. Bradley's Liberals are hiding from independent scrutiny of their health-care monopoly, and, of their accompanying claims regarding its performance. There is no transparent oversight in this rat's nest of ideological heath-care Liberalism gone wildly askew. Bizarrely, now somehow the spectre of "public transit" (another black-hole for public funds) is entering the hospital-cuts debate; this when Good Ole Jim Bradley, Mr. GO-PROMISER (and, now the Transportation Minister, for cryin' out loud) has done done flicking NOTHING regarding GO train service to Niagara! (Because, strangely, that TOO is contingent upon some ephemeral prerequisite regional system... and on it goes... a perennial, eternal make-work project, keeping earnest, eager Liberal statists busily planning to fix the problems created by earlier eager, earnest Liberal statists...)
*

Anne Kranics wrote in "The bottom line for Fort Erie residents" (Niagara This Week, Feb.6, 2009):

"As you sit in your offices and homes with the full knowledge that you are safe and within life and death help may I remind you of our bottom line:
1. We had a well run hospital with the services that met our needs and ran in the black.
2. You (Phantoms from the government, LHIN. NHS, HIP etc.) stripped our hospital to meet your needs without consultation or notification to the taxpayers.
3. These powers that be continued on the path of meetings to decide our fate without acceptable feedback to the public.
4. After the unfair removal of equipment and services we were told that we've been functioning like this for a long time. No kidding, what choice did we have?
5. Since we have left things in your hands , you have decimated our life line and now are saying "See, you don't have what's necessary to be a hospital so we'll have to take that designation away!!" Please, do not do that!
6.The new St. Catharines hospital will not meet our needs for reasons given many times over.
7. Dr. Kitts, has not been as generous to our community as he has to his own and Mr. McGuinty's - as they have hospitals in their areas - how far is Mr. Caplan from his hospital? You know that Fort Erie is at the end of the line and we have taken care of ourselves nicely.
These people do not live here and will not suffer the consequences of shutting our hospital down! Being touted an expert and telling others what's good for them without having to live in the environment they create is barbaric and uncivilized!
8. Our lives are in your hands and you are responsible for your decisions.You are at a point that you can do the civilized thing and keep our hospital open! We are at your mercy and ask you to do the right the right thing. Do not leave us with nothing. We deserve better!"
*

I ask what St. Catharines MPP Liberal Jim Bradley has to say in response to Ms. Kranics? Apparently, Good Ole Jim doesn't feel it is necessary for him to respond to public questions about the blowback to residents and to patients of his Liberal-government-monopoly's high-handed health-care edicts.
And, hey, who cares about Fort Erie, anyhow, that's Liberal MPP Kim Craitor's embarrassing political pickle, isn't it? Bradley can smugly leave himself out of it!
Health Minister David Caplan couldn't give a hoot either, as we've just recently seen. Maybe the Great Lying McGuinty will come calling to Fort Erie for votes, just before the next election!!

Remember how a smirking McGuinty turned and walked away from that cancer patient - Mike Brady - during the 2007 Ontario election campaign, disputing the man's claim that McGuinty wasn't doing enough for him?!
Yeah, well, McGuinty's doing the same walk-away from Fort Erie today. Tomorrow, it'll be a hospital near you. And there is nowhere else to turn to in this Liberal single-payer health-care monopoly.
This is not a red-herring question about WHERE a hospital is; this is an elemental question about WHAT our "hospital system" "is".
Niagara's mayors, the councillors, the Region... who has done anything to successfully challenge the Liberals' slickly-named "centres of excellence" health-care cutbacks? They've all hit the McGuinty ideological wall. It's out of our jurisdiction, they say.
(Maybe the Regional government, with the support of Niagara's mayors, can challenge McGuinty's demogogic monopolistic health-care practices - but fat chance of that, because a lot of Niagara's mayors are loyal Liberal hacks, as well - all part of the same problem...).
How about declaring Niagara a medicare-free zone?
Let a bankrupt, deficit-ridden McGuinty try to shut that down.
Encourage private medical investment.
Fight Liberal Healthcare Duplicity.
Declare the intention that Niagara will secede from sole reliance on McGuinty's OHIP health-monopoly, and will pursue its own health care policy, and that in the interim, Niagarans should be refunded their health-care expenses directly from the federal government, thereby correspondingly not allowing it to reach McGuinty's mitts. That is the only message McGuintyites will understand, when they are deprived of expected health-care money which they assume is theirs.
If Niagara is to be callously used by McGuinty as a test-case for his monopoly cuts, Niagara should respond by declaring this area an OHIP-free test zone, and by asking the federal government for emergency protection from the McGuinty majority-government's health schemes.
McGuinty should not possess carte-blanche access to our health-care dollars. Niagara Region could negotiate a health care plan under different scenarios on behalf of some 450,000 people with other invited providers; anything which forced McGuintyite monopolists to have no choice but compete for their own funding, or else be deprived of health-cash, would be a good thing. Utilize the expertise of neighbouring Buffalo health care facilities. Niagara could create and fund its own insurance plan; not, though, as just another freshly-minted replicant mini-monopoly, but as an open option, patient payer/provider choice system.
It is acknowledged that health care is not free.
Let consumers - not presumptive McGuintyites [or yellow-shirted socialist NDPeer's] - decide how to spend their own health dollars. Niagarans should be allowed to opt out of the McGuinty government's monopoly-health schemes.
Given that the McCreith/Holmes health-care charter case against McGuinty's Ontario Liberals is still looming at the Supreme Court, now is the time to seriously consider implementing an honest, fair, realistic health strategy that does not leave the participant-resident-patient-stakeholders at the mercy of evasive, statist, bait-and-switch McGuinty-monopolist promises. A hybrid approach might as well be tried here, in an orderly manner.
We deserve better than to be reduced to pleading - as Kranics sadly does - with these deaf, arrogant Liberals. (And when U.S. President Obama visits Canada, let him take into consideration the damage that socialized state-run monopoly medicine has done in Ontario. Americans shouldn't covet Canada's failing universal-health-care system. There are certainly other templates better than Ontario's to look at.)
It's time to draw a line in the sand over the Liberal's sacrificial abandonment of Fort Erie.
*
Let's fast forward to Nov.17, 2014 - I was listening to the Jim Richards Showgram on Toronto's NewsTalk 1010 (the old CFRB), where host Jimberley was interviewing a guest, Dr. Brett Belchetz, regarding the shortage of medical pathologists on Ontario.
It was a great interview, and I wish that I could find a link to it on the NewsTalk 1010 website, or to this Nov.17th afternoon podcast, but it was not listed on the Showgram's web page. It would be an interesting interview for folks to listen to.
Amongst the topics discussed, I recall the doctor mentioning a recent Commonwealth Fund study, which rated Canada's health system as the SECOND WORST in the developed (not 'developing'!) world... and him mentioning that for Canadians, or Ontarians, going to nearby American cities such as Buffalo was certainly an option to get faster biopsy results... again: this is the same stuff I had written about in Liberal Health Care Duplicity SEVEN years ago!!! It's like the health care disaster in Ontario created by monopoly-pushing hacks such as St.Catharines MPP Jim Bradley and his Liberals has no end of horror.
There's an excellent article (one of many) by Dr. Brett Belchetz in the Huffington Post, Jun.27, 2014.
To top it off, I was watching TVO on Nov.24, 2014, in the evening, and who was there as a panelist but another ghoul from the past: old Michael 'Rae Day' Decter, the pathetic former deputy health minister - and HEALTH CARE CUTTER - under socialist Ontario premier Bob Rae. To believe that this piece of work still prattles his tales twenty years after the horrors which he and Rae's NDP perpetrated, is sickening.  
*

Liberals force state-run health-monopoly cuts throughout Ontario

Looking for more evidence (see also: Second-rate Liberal health-care in Sudbury, Jim Bradley's hometown) of Dalton McGuinty’s mismanagement of his Liberal-run health monopoly?

Let’s look north from St. Catharines, across Lake Ontario, towards Belleville, and examine three recent articles, again, with eerily similar situations to those that St. Catharines and Niagara are also experiencing:

Michelle Newlands wrote in “Hospital struggles to solve $8 million deficit” (Loyalist college Pioneer, Nov.14, 2008):

“As the clock ticks, the deadline gets closer for Quinte Health Care to come up with a solution to an $8 million deficit problem.

The province has given QHC until March 31, 2010 to permanently eliminate $8 million from its annual budget, which means there will be significant cuts to services, according to Susan Rowe, manager of public affairs and community relations for QHC.

She says it is too soon to speculate about possible staff cuts as they are nowhere near saying what the impact will be on individual sites.

Rowe says once this reduction in the budget is implemented, QHC must continue to balance the new budget every year or else QHC will become a provincially-owned unit, like Kingston General Hospital, making this budget shortfall more than just a one-time issue.

The easiest way to understand why QHC is in this position, Rowe says, is to realize that in the past five years, expenses have gone up at a seven to eight per cent rate compared to a two to three per cent revenue increase from the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.

Rowe says this is not sustainable and is a very complex problem that has been continuously evolving over time and QHC must now look at other options.“The board of directors and the management team feel they have now hit a wall and we can no longer take inefficiency out or find new revenue sources or any other way to balance the budget without looking at significant service cuts and consolidations.”

Wages, benefits, medication and information technology are all expenses that contribute to the overall increase of doing business, Rowe says. All these costs are continuing to rise, some of them at greater than inflation, and certainly at a rate greater than the two to three per cent from the Ministry.

The fact that Quinte has a growing population is also a main contributing factor to the problem of cost, Rowe says. The aging population and the fact there is such a high number of patients waiting for beds in nursing homes is directly related to the overall occupancy rate. The Ministry of Health typically budgets a hospital at an 85 per cent occupancy rate, where QHC is currently at a 100 per cent occupancy. Rowe says from a budgeting perspective, that 15 per cent difference is huge.

“There is no hospital in Ontario that gets paid per patient,” Rowe says.“We get a base amount and it doesn’t matter how many patients come through our door in any given year, that is the amount we receive.”

Julie Gunter, a second-year registered practical nurse, says the removal of any of QHC services is going to negatively affect health care because patients may not be offered the proper level of care. However, she does not yet feel her profession is at jeopardy because there will always be a demand for nurses with the aging population.

“They will always need RPNs [in health care] because we do hands on care with the patients and are [typically] more affordable [than other health care technicians],” she says.

Gunter believes none of the services offered through QHC should be cut because the health center is already struggling to provide the best quality of care to the community but she understands it is now out of their control. She trusts the management at QHC to consider all options and make a conscious and well-educated decision on how best to deal with the deficit.
The management team will be creating options that will soon be presented to the board. Once the board has decided on a possible course of action, there will be consultations with the staff, physicians, other health care partners and the public to come up with a final decision to implement the plan.

Rowe says this is a situation that is not unique to QHC; all hospitals across the province and even across the country are facing similar issues with overcrowding, financial shortages and shortages of health care professionals.”**

In the above article, you might as well just replace “QHC” with “NHS” – the problems are the same!

Liberal monopoly health-systems are being ordered to CUT SERVICES and REDUCE BUDGETS in order to meet Liberal-created, artificial deficit envelopes.

When Newland reports: “The aging population and the fact there is such a high number of patients waiting for beds in nursing homes is directly related to the overall occupancy rate. The Ministry of Health typically budgets a hospital at an 85 per cent occupancy rate, where QHC is currently at a 100 per cent occupancy,” this sounds just like in St. Catharines!

When Rowe says: “We get a base amount and it doesn’t matter how many patients come through our door in any given year, that is the amount we receive,” – we should ask, is that also what happened in St. Catharines, prior to the Nov.29, 2007 CIHI discovery showing the St. Catharines General Hospital had the third-highest patient death-rate in Canada? Were the Liberals handing an aging and rising population a fixed amount of dollars to be rationed on a declining per-patient basis??

This apparently is the “status-quo”, the standard-operating-procedure norm in McGuinty’s authoritarian health-monopoly: under-funding their own system, while concurrently - and purposefully, by law - denying patient-hostages the option to obtain competitive payer/provider health care. This is demogogic Liberal ideology run amok; this kind of Tommy-Douglas-socialism-taken-to-the-extreme horror story should be considered nothing short of criminal.

Secretive St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley has still not explained what led up to the high mortality-rate in the hospital in his own backyard. Yet, Ontario Liberals baldly claim that they ARE NOT (!) underfunding hospitals; they claim there is no link between the death-rate and their funding formula, but, they also refuse to allow the ombudsman to investigate their health monopoly.

MPP Jim Bradley didn’t even bother to call for any investigation into the Niagara Health System (NHS) after the high mortality-rate was revealed.

What Niagarans got were consolidations by the NHS, after a drawn-out ‘review’ (the Jack Kitts report of Oct. 2008) which only rubber-stamped the Liberal's grand plans of 'fixing health care by cutting health care', and, at the same time, preventing Ontario's patient-hostages from seeking their own, non-state-supplied health-care.

***

Barry Ellsworth wrote in “Hospitals face tough decisions” (Belleville Intelligencer, Nov.14, 2008):

" More than half Ontario's 157 hospitals have projected deficits for the end of the 2009-10 fiscal year and the trick will be to "minimize harm" to the health-care system as cuts are made, says Tom Closson.

The president of the Ontario Hospital Association said Thursday that due to several factors -- but most importantly the economic downturn -- hospitals are going to have to cut and consolidate services.

"It is a challenging time for health care at the moment because of the (economic) situation," Closson said.

Quinte Health Care will have an accumulated projected deficit of about $15.3-million by March 31, 2010.

Part of that can be laid at the feet of capacity -- its sites, particularly Belleville, Trenton and Picton, have beds taken up by so-called alternate level of care patients. Those are patients who are ready for discharge from hospital but have nowhere to go because of a lack of available nursing home beds and in-home nursing services.

Closson said that at any given time 30 per cent of beds are taken at QHC by these patients (the figure fluctuates), whereas the provincial average is 20 per cent. The situation has forced QHC to pay nurses overtime and stress on nurses has resulted in more sick time, driving up costs.

Nursing homes and in-home services would be cheaper and a more efficient use of scarce health-care dollars than keeping them in hospital.

"We could use the money more wisely," Closson said.

The province's 14 Local Health Integration Networks, which took over responsibility for health-care funding from the Ministry of Health, are working with the OHA to see what can be done to help hospitals secure balanced budgets, he said.

"We are doing a review of each hospital at the moment," Closson said.

Also causing financial grief is funding levels, he said.

Hospitals received an across-the- board increase of 2.4 per cent for 2008-09, and expect a 2.1 per cent in 2009-10.

"Inflation is obviously higher than that," Closson said.

But the big question mark remains the economic downturn that has struck the province, he said. It could mean funding levels to hospitals will be reduced even further.

"We don't know the answer to that (yet)," Closson said.”**

Again, eerily similar to Niagara - Liberal MPP’s either don’t know what their own government is doing about the funding levels, or aren’t giving the answers – and they're the ones running the health monopoly.

Half of Ontario's 157 hospitals are in deficit, yet Liberals claim their underfunding has nothing to do with that?

What a load of Liberal Healthcare Duplicity.

Let’s not forget that Niagara’s so-called “review” process slowly began late in 2007, before the excuse of the “economic downturn” was taken seriously by the Liberals in the first place.

The Liberals were already underfunding their health monopoly prior to this excuse being used.

Again, the bed shortage/underfunding link is made by Closson (above), a link the Liberals keep denying. Dalton McGuinty himself ignored doctor’s calls to ease ER backups by creating more hospital beds. (St. Catharines Standard, Sept.30, 2006)

That was over two years ago: this statist assault on health-care by monopolist Liberals has been deliberate.

***
As detailed in the next article (below) the Quinte Health Centre is now also looking for a “reviewer”.
How coincidental … Dr. Jack Kitts just finished up the Liberal’s dog-and-pony show here in St. Catharines for the NHS, sooo ... maybe he's available?

Also coincidental (!) is that the so-called reviewer (rubber-stamper?) that the QHC is seeking WILL NOT be looking at the QHC's finances ... just as NHS reviewer Dr. Jack Kitts did not do!
Financial examination is purposefully left out of their purview. The Liberals don't want anyone snooping around their monopoly's hospitals asking questions that go to the heart of their political, not medical, policy; or discovering links or discrepancies between the Liberal's funding decisions and resultant medical care!

Barry Ellsworth wrote in "QHC gets no answers on financial relief after meeting with health minister, " (Belleville Intelligencer, Nov.14, 2008):

“An independent reviewer will look at plans to mop up the red ink at Quinte Health Care.

But, if mayors and QHC officials thought they'd get some hint of financial help from a meeting with the province's health minister Thursday, they left empty-handed.

Following a meeting between QHC officials, local mayors and Health Minister David Caplan in Toronto, little has changed -- the hospital still faces major service cuts and a ballooning deficit.

The reviewer -- known as a "third party" overseer "agreed upon by all parties" at the meeting Thursday -- will not look at QHC's finances, just the options drawn up by administration to cut expenses.

Those expenses could include cutting services at any of QHC's hospitals, but most likely at Trenton and Picton.

It is expected the reviewer, who has yet to be chosen, will begin his or her work in April 2009.

But, Caplan made it clear to QHC board members there would be no new money to help overcome financial woes.

"Did we get more money? No," said Belleville Mayor Neil Ellis in an interview after the hour-plus long meeting with Caplan. "Do we still need to balance our budget? Yes."

As well, QHC still has a Dec. 21 deadline to produce a plan that will detail how the hospital will ensure that it has a balanced budget at the end of two years, by March 31, 2010.

Officials from QHC and the regional body that controls health-care funding in this area -- the Local Health Integration Network -- will meet Monday to sort out the details on a reviewer.

The new development means that a special QHC board meeting set for Monday is cancelled, officials said.

Prince Edward County Mayor Leo Finnegan said the meeting with Caplan was "positive."

"No, we didn't get any money (but) the door wasn't slammed and we weren't told to go home," he said.

Laughton is on record as saying the cuts could be "heart-wrenching."

Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Leona Dombrowsky, who helped arrange and attended the session with Caplan, said there was a "fair airing of the issues."

She said the minister gave no direction on how to eliminate the deficit, but reminded everyone there was an ultimate goal in mind.

"That is about providing quality health care ... in a sustainable way," Dombrowsky said.

According to the minister, the other goal was to uncover "how did (QHC) get from a balanced position" to a deficit, she said.

To be clear, QHC has a projected deficit of $6.8 million in 2008-09, and another $8.5 million by March 31, 2010, said QHC spokeswoman Susan Rowe. That totals $15.3 million -- the figures tend to change as the days roll by and projected numbers become more concrete.

The hospital will borrow the $15.3 million from a bank and will pay off the debt over a long period of years, she said.

The financial plan to be filed by QHC to the LHIN by Dec. 21 will detail how the hospital will move forward, beginning April 1, 2010, with a balanced budget.

The hospital will still hold a series of public meetings to gather opinions from residents on which cuts are the most palatable.

"When this review process is complete, we will share the restructuring options with the board and our communities and solicit other options and ideas from them," QHC board chairman Jack Moore said.

In an interview after the meeting, Caplan said he was pleased QHC was going to "engage" residents before making any decisions on cuts.

He added he told the LHINs, who must approve any proposed cuts by hospitals, that non-clinical areas should go under the knife first and that nurses should not be laid off.

"I made that very clear ..." Caplan said. Delivering health care at a cost society can afford is a hurdle regardless of the economic times, he said.

"There has always been the challenge in health care -- the needs have always outstripped the resources that are available," Caplan said."***

When Ontario’s Liberal health Minister David Caplan claims “The needs have always outstripped the resources that are available,” he is echoing the same sentiment expressed by former Liberal Health Minister George Smitherman, who also acknowledged that his Liberal government can't "do it all," (St. Catharines Standard, Aug.11, 2005)

A faulty ideology has infected both of these health-monopolist health ministers, as well as Ontario's Liberal lemming MPP's – they believe that they alone should be providing health care!

Yet, even though they KNOW they 'can’t do it all'; even though they KNOW they 'can’t provide the resources to properly fund their monopoly' - they still deny patient-consumers the right to obtain their health care elsewhere.
*
Let's move forward to Chris Malette's Nov.21, 2015 Inside Belleville Metroland Media report about health-care cuts being implemented in Belleville - the QHC "admitted that the news was difficult to announce. The restructuring is intended to allow QHC to remove $11.5 million in expenses next year in order to operate within its reduced funding levels from the province. This includes a $7-million reduction in administration/support departments and $4.5 million in patient care areas, QHC said"
This is the EXACT same duplicitous health care cutting template, which the Liberals did in Niagara!

Liberal healthcare hack Hoskins is doing the same things that Smitherman, Caplan, and Matthews did before him.

The healthcare budget IS SET at the whim of health minister Eric Hoskins' monopolist Liberals - therefore, cuts need to be made... end of story!

As an Ontario patient, you have no other choice - this is HoskinScare TM for you - - - thanks Dr. Eric!

And: isn't it sadly funny, how Metroland writer Chris Malette didn't even mention the words Kathleen Wynne, Liberal, or Eric Hoskins, in his story!! It's as if... let's see... oh yeah: it's as if Liberals have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT !!!
Wow!! Nice 'reporting' - anyone reading this half-story would never know that any Liberal, had anything to do with these health care cuts!!! Amazing!!!
I'm sure that if this same scenario had unfolded under 'harris', it would have been gleefully noted dozens of times per Metroland article!! (Metroland Media never lets readers down, eh, Mr. Beland Honderich?!)
Here's Belleville's MPP, Progressive Conservative Todd Smith, speaking about the QHC cuts - isn't it funny that Metroland Media reporter Malette didn't even ask the local MPP for an interview!!!
MPP Todd Smith said:
"Fall is in the air and because it is, that can only mean one thing: Another round of cuts and staff uncertainty at Quinte Healthcare hospitals. To make up for an $11.5-million funding shortfall created largely because Ontario’s Liberal government can’t manage money, jobs and services will be cut at hospitals in Picton, Belleville, Bancroft and Trenton. Money is being spent on debt that people in Prince Edward–Hastings want spent on the services they need in their hospitals.
This morning, we learned that in order to close the $11.5-million shortfall, QHC is proposing a reduction of nearly all surgery services at Trenton Memorial, $4.5 million in direct care cuts and changes that one QHC executive calls “very hard on our staff.”
During the years of this government, QHC has been the recipient of almost continual funding shortfalls from the ministry.
Speaker, if I could, I’d like to direct some comments directly to my constituency back at home: The deficit this government is running is costing you your health care services. QHC has had to come up $25 million in cuts over four years to make up for funding shortfalls because the Liberal government at Queen’s Park doesn’t have any money left. The government says money is going into better home care services but the Auditor General says services are being cut there too to pay for fat-cat salaries.
The third largest expense in the budget is how much we pay to service our debt and it’s also the fastest growing.
That’s why cuts like this have gone from being rare to happening annually."

Yet if one reads only Malette's Metroland Media 'report', one would think - as residents of Niagara were similarly conditioned to believe by their local media - that it was just the board of the local hospital who made all these 'decisions'! The link to the Ontario Liberal government's monopolist diktat of health-care cuts is not clearly made, at all!!
This is Liberal healthcare duplicity, in its finest most despotic mode.
Let's note again - before Liberal monopoly-supporting, single-payer-defending sycophants start deflecting blame onto the QHC - that the blame squarely belongs to Kathleen Wynne's health-cutting, monopoly-pushing Liberals.
As similarly happened in Niagara, the NHS and the NHS's CEO were conveniently targeted as scapegoats for implementing what were purely Liberal-mandated monopolist health-care cuts.
In Niagara, local Liberal MPP Jim Bradley sat back and smiled contentedly as the local media spun blame onto the NHS, while all along it was his Ontario Liberal government which created the phony budgets in order to manipulate the health-care cuts.
Remember the meme: health care cuts are 'good' when Ontario's monopolist Liberals or the NDP do it!
*

Hospital death-rate in Liberal Jim Bradley's St. Catharines: third-worst in Canada

Here’s a thread of stories regarding the continuing saga of the Liberal disaster of a hospital project in Brampton:

On Jan. 1, 2008 the Toronto Sun’s Tamara Cherry wrote in “Hospital CEO sidelined, New supervisor takes over at beleaguered Brampton Civic”:

“The CEO and board of Brampton Civic Hospital were rendered powerless yesterday with the provincial appointment of a supervisor sent in to raise public confidence in the ever-controversial hospital.
Admitting he is "not at all" familiar with concerns put forward by Bramptonians, including those of a 72-year-old woman who had the wrong leg cut open during surgery last week, Ken White said he is "probably as prepared as anybody" for the position of supervisor.
White acted as an investigator for the hospital until its doors opened Oct. 28, but said he is only now beginning to catch up on complaints against the hospital.
With White now carrying "ultimate responsibility" for the hospital, it was unclear yesterday what the future holds for Robert Richards, CEO of William Osler Health Centre, which umbrellas Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General .
"Mr. Richards' status is still being negotiated," said hospital spokesman Gillian Williams McClean Automatically, when a supervisor is appointed, the CEO is without power or authority," said White.
Brampton Civic has been under fire since its doors opened the same day Peel Memorial Hospital closed for renovations.
In November, Harnek Sidhu, 52, waited 12 hours for a hospital bed before he died of pancreatitis 10 days later, his family said. His death and that of another man shortly after spurred Bramptonians for Better Health Care (BBHC) to lead more than 1,000 protesters through downtown Brampton.
Amar Kaur Brar, 72, who broke her left leg only to have her right leg cut open in surgery Christmas Day, remained in her hospital bed in "so much pain" yesterday, said her granddaughter Kanwaljot Brar, 21.
Hospital officials wouldn't allow media onto Brar's floor.
In addressing the need for more hospital staff in order to open more beds, George Smitherman, deputy premier and minister for long-term care, pushed blame to the community and media.
"When a hospital is in ... a state of a little bit under siege from a media and community response, I think that it can be somewhat intimidating to (potential) employees," Smitherman said.
"Job one for all of us must be establishing the necessary confidence in the operation of this hospital," Smitherman said in announcing White's appointment, which is expected to be in effect for six to nine months.
Duncan Glaholt, chairman of the hospital's board of directors, said while it's possible board members will step down during White's appointment, "all the board have faith in him.
You can't have two groups running a hospital," Glaholt said. "Ken's a marvellous guy."”
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Tamara Cherry followed up with this story, “Ombudsman widens aim, Now he can investigate complaints about Brampton hospital”, (Toronto Sun, Jan. 3, 2008):

"The provincial appointment of a supervisor to oversee Brampton Civic Hospital means the province's watchdog now has jurisdiction to investigate complaints against the facility.
Health and Long-Term Care Minister George Smitherman appointed Ken White to take control as supervisor of Brampton Civic on Monday, following a series of complaints that have plagued the hospital since it opened Oct. 28.
Most recently, a 72-year-old woman had the wrong leg cut open during Christmas Day surgery. In November, a man waited 12 hours in the emergency room before dying of pancreatitis 10 days later, his family said.
Ontario ombudsman Andre Marin is the only provincial watchdog in Canada who doesn't have the mandate to oversee hospitals, his office said yesterday. He can therefore only investigate complaints when the government takes direct control of an institution, as it did with Brampton Civic.
Marin can now investigate any complaints that come to his office regarding William Osler Health Centre, which oversees Brampton Civic and Etobicoke General. According to Marin's annual report, his office received 237 complaints and inquiries about problems in hospitals and long-term care facilities last year alone. But without jurisdiction, he was powerless to investigate.
"Many were from vulnerable individuals or their families, some of whom alleged that they had experienced retaliation from the institutions when they raised concerns internally," Marin said in his report.
One complaint was about a woman who waited for a week in an emergency room bed for treatment of a chronic condition, only to be transferred elsewhere two weeks later by the hospital, which then refused to forward her medical history to the new facility, Marin said.
Another was about a nursing home resident who was allegedly being abused by a relative, "apparently with the knowledge of the home's administrators."
Last year alone, Marin's office was forced to decline nearly 2,400 "pleas for help" involving municipalities, universities, school boards, hospitals and long-term care facilities, as well as other organizations such as police and children's aid societies.
'IMMUNE FROM SCRUTINY'
"These areas consume the bulk of provincial budgets, and more importantly, they represent the most serious contacts that Ontarians can have with their government. Yet they are immune from our scrutiny," Marin said.
In addition to William Osler, Marin can investigate complaints about Scarborough Hospital, Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Alliston and Huronia District Hospital, which have been under provincial supervision in recent months."

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Peter Crisione wrote in “Ontario’s Ombudsman can now hear complaints about BCH”, (Brampton Guardian, Jan.3, 2008):

“Ontario's Ombudsman will now investigate complaints made against William Osler Health Centre, the province's top watchdog agency announced Wednesday.
With the appointment of Ken White as supervisor to William Osler Health Centre, the agency now has the power to look into patient grievances.
The Ombudsman's office does not generally have power over hospitals in Ontario, but White's appointment has changed that, said agency spokesperson Linda Williamson.
"That changes when the government takes direct control since the Ombudsman has jurisdiction over the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care," she said.
The move comes after two patient deaths at the hospital, and after a 72-year-old woman claimed doctors operated on the wrong leg when she went to Brampton Civic for surgery on Christmas Day. Williamson said the provincial agency does not intend to investigate the events that have transpired at the new hospital recently. Rather, the Ombudsman's office will look into situations that occur at Brampton Civic moving forward.
"This is the very beginning of a process. We are not now saying 'Oh we heard about something that happened a couple of months ago and we'll go and investigate,'" Williamson said. Someone will have to come forward with a complaint. We get 20,000 complaints a year on everything in the government and so we will assess them the way we do all our complaints. And if there is something with substance of course we will investigate it and see what happens from there."
Ontario is the only province in Canada where the Ombudsman does not have a mandate to oversee hospitals. Despite this, the office receives numerous complaints about hospitals every year that cannot be investigated.
A total of 228 complaints about hospitals were received in 2007, the office of the Ombudsman has reported.
"Normally, if someone were to call us about the hospital we wouldn't be able to do anything," Williamson told The Guardian. "Right now there is this window of jurisdiction that has opened."
If a problem with the government has been identified, the Ombudsman can report on it and make recommendations to correct the situation.
The agency can also make recommendations to change government policies and practices to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.”
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Prithi Yelaja wrote in "Smitherman defends deal for hospital, Dismisses bids to link patient care troubles to funding model", (Toronto Star, Jan.7, 2008):

"As the Ontario Health Coalition was poised to release a report today about what it calls a "cover-up" surrounding the public-private partnership that built Brampton Civic Hospital, Health Minister George Smitherman dismissed the group as "more irrelevant by the day."
"George Smitherman will not be spending too much time worrying about what the Ontario Health Coalition has got to say because they've demonstrated very little relevance," Smitherman told the Star in a wide-ranging interview.
"They have a lot of rhetoric. ... At a certain point of time people have to start to question their motives."
In its report to be released at Queen's Park, the activist group contends that the so-called P3 deal to build Brampton Civic has proved costly to taxpayers, delivering a smaller facility than promised, late and over budget.
"At every stage, as deadlines were missed, as costs ballooned, as the capacity of the hospital was reduced, elected officials responded to public questioning with a string of broken promises, denials and obfuscation," says the report.
Adds the coalition's Natalie Mehra: "It's the oldest trick in the book to attack the messenger and sidetrack the message. I would hope the government would stop running this as a public relations game and put their P3 policy under serious review."
Smitherman denied any links between the P3 model and legitimate community concerns about long wait times in the emergency unit, staff shortages and poor communication at the new hospital.
He said public sector unions and the coalition "want to use the misfortune around patient care incidents to muddle the issue around the nature of the building.
"Because a building has a mortgage, it makes people sick? The Ontario Health Coalition has a mindset ... that's mostly about fighting a battle that's long, long, long since been decided," he said. Last week, Smitherman named Ken White as hospital supervisor, charged with looking into problems at Brampton Civic in an effort to restore public confidence.
The deaths of Harnek Sidhu, 52, of pancreatitis and Amarjit Narwal, 42, of a stroke, sparked a huge community protest in December, fuelled by the coalition and Punjabi-language media. Amar Kaur, 72, recently complained that doctors cut open her right leg by mistake when she required surgery on her fractured left leg.
Appointing a supervisor was unusual because Brampton Civic had barely opened. It was inaugurated with great fanfare on Oct. 28, replacing the aging and now closed Peel Memorial Hospital.
"This is a new building, but the core of the organization has been around for quite a long time. ... Let's not pretend that the old Peel Memorial was a hospital that was operating perfectly and was unblemished in the community's eyes. We've had some challenges there for a good number of years," Smitherman said.
While Peel Memorial scored the lowest weighted mortality rate of all hospitals in the province based on a recent report, Smitherman said that was largely attributable to the calibre of its front line staff. But he suggested the quality of leadership at the CEO and board level needs improvement.
Reporting directly to Smitherman, White has powers to override both board chair Duncan Glaholt and CEO Robert Richards. Glaholt denied local rumours that the board had resigned in light of the move or that Richards was fired.
"Our instinct is consensual, but that shouldn't be misunderstood for status quo. It's certainly not a quick fix," said Smitherman, adding that White's job could take nine months or longer.
As for negative, sometimes erroneous, media reports inflaming the controversy, Smitherman said, "no hospital where the staff is feeling under siege is going to produce the results that we need. The perception from staff is they're a little bit set upon by the community, and the perception from the community (is that) the staff are not necessarily meeting all of their needs."
The fate of the mothballed Peel Memorial is also at issue. Many people in fast-growing Brampton feel the city needs two hospitals. The Local Health Integration Network will hold the first of two public meetings Wednesday night to solicit community input on what services to provide at a refurbished Peel Memorial.
The question has been asked repeatedly: Will the old facility reopen in 2009?
"I have been consistent on this point since 2005," he said. "Because of the deviousness around some of these community players, they will not accept yes for an answer."
While Brampton Civic "was built with all of the growth that has occurred (in the region) in mind and then some, we agree fundamentally that Brampton's future health care needs will definitely require substantial services being provided at the Peel Memorial site."
However, he said, "Job one is enhancements to the quality and quantity of clinical services" at Brampton Civic. "Spreading resources across two sites is a very, very bad idea right now."
The local community still owes $110 million – nearly half of its share of the cost of building the $790 million hospital – and Smitherman is not letting it off the hook.
"Never before in Ontario have we embarked on such a big initiative, where community fundraising efforts have been relatively more modest than the scale of the community's ambitions.""
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After CIHI released their mortality-rates report on Nov.29, 2007, revealing that St. Catharines General Hospital's death-rate was the third-worst of 85 Canadian hospitals studied, (excluding Quebec), the Liberals (prodded by Niagara Falls Liberal MPP Kim Craitor) trotted out a smoke-and-mirror 'organizational review' of the NHS, but ignored the mortality-rate issue!
Local Liberal MPP Jim Bradley, who in opposition raised a stink about issues like gasoline prices, couldn't be bothered to raise a stink about this deadly health-care embarrassment in his own city.

The Ontario Ombudsman's office does not have the mandate to oversee hospitals... unless the government allows the Ombudsman to do so.
The Liberals along with Jim Bradley chose not to investigate the high NHS death rates.
There was no direct call for the Ombudsman here; nor was there an appointment of a supervisor to the NHS (as occurred at other Ontario hospitals under scrutiny) to pave the way for the Ombudsman.

I guess the death rates - at third-worst in the Canada - aren't yet high enough for the Liberals to warrant concern.
As James Wallace wrote in the St. Catharines Standard (Dec.1, 2007), "mortality rates at the St. Catharines hospital, for example, are 35 per cent higher than the national average" ... yet, Liberal MPP Jim Bradley didn't even bother to ask for an IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION, nor did Liberal Jim Bradley himself bother to explain this disturbing revelation.
Maybe it's the Liberal way to meet Kyoto-CO2 emissions by controlling the population? High death rates: that's good, pro-environment 'green' policy, isn't it?

It is astounding how Liberal health care duplicity extends to making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for any outside body to investigate the government-run health monopoly, unless they first get PERMISSION from the government!
This allows Ontario's Liberals to control and stage the timing of events. The health 'system' has itself and its political masters to protect first; patients and their health-market-needs are not part of this monopoly's priorities. This system is first and foremost a social experiment. Patients are the political guinea pigs.

The reasons for the McCreith/Holmes health-care Charter challenge occurring become clearer when seen in context to this kind of lack of transparency, self-protection, and unresponsiveness surrounding institutionalized monopoly health-care in Ontario. This is the judicial by-pass patients have been forced into, because legislated monopoly health-care has clogged Ontario's delivery arteries with socialism.

Patients stuck in this mess have no time for the promises of socialized medicine to kick in - the promises vanish as the failed realities of Smitherman's protected system set in.

The Toronto Star reported Jan.7, 2008, how Smitherman, talking of Brampton, "dismisses bids to link patient care troubles to funding model". Yet in Niagara, exactly a month ago, the St. Catharines Standard (Dec. 7, 2007) reported "Laurel Ostfield, a spokeswoman for Smitherman, said the spectre of a review of operations at the NHS isn't a direct response to high death rates at St. Catharines General Hospital, which made national headlines last week."

So: 'patient care troubles' are not related to funding - at least in Brampton, and as already predetermined by the biased person running the system, Smitherman! Are we just supposed to take this Liberal's word that this is true?!

And so, what about the 'patient care troubles' in St. Catharines?

There, Smitherman's staff were also denying any link between the CIHI report and the subsequent Liberal NHS 'organizational review'!! Unbelievable.


You would think that the Liberals would have immediately shown concern about the high death rates, and launch - not a simple (yet purposefully politically deflective) "organizational review" - but a full-fledged inquiry.
But no: in St. Catharines, Jim Bradley and his disgusting Liberals didn't even acknowledge any link between their 'funding model', the high death rates, and their so-called 'review'.

The real issue here (which Jim Bradley and his Liberal were desperately trying to cloud and hide with their phony 'review') was actually the Liberal's "funding model' itself - specifically, the Liberal's failing single-payer-monopoly funding model.


Jim Bradley and his Ontario Liberals were desperate to ensure that NO LINK be made between their under-funding of health-care to the patients' deaths.
The Ontario Liberals desperately needed to divert, deny, and deflect ANY scrutiny of their monopolist single-payer ideology's link to their under-funded monopoly system's patient deaths.
Jim Bradley and his Liberals needed to deflect their own direct links to the patient deaths in their own underfunded monopoly - - while at the same time, these same Liberals propagandized and portrayed themselves as somehow holding the mantle for, and being the 'saviours' of, Ontario's patients!!
This deception, this political conceit, is at the crux of Ontario's Liberal health-care duplicity.


Liberals also ignored that "The NHS has consistently maintained it doesn't receive enough funding from the provincial government to properly care for a population with a large mix of seniors and residents on the lower end of the socio-economic scale."If a review brings in the results we need to get the funding we need, then we're all for it," [Betty-Lou Souter, chairwoman of the health system's board of trustees] said."The bottom line is, we need to have more money to carry out the programs we're doing." " (St. Catharines Standard, Dec.7, 2007)
So why doesn't the single-payer-pushing health-care monopolist Jim Bradley explain why his Liberals are not sufficiently funding the health monopoly which they cherish so?
Where's the money?!

Liberal leader McGuinty said twice during the election leaders' debate (Sept.20, 2007) that "one-half" of Ontario government spending goes to health care. Jim Wallace wrote in the St. Catharines Standard (Dec.1, 2007) that the government spent "46 cents of every dollar", or "near $38 billion this year" on health care.
Carol Goar wrote in the Toronto Star (Jan.7, 2008) that Ontario's health care system "consumes 40 cents out of every provincial dollar".

Which is the correct figure? Do defenders of the status-quo health care monopoly, like Jim Bradley, even know the true cost of delivering health care? Was McGuinty lying that he spends 50% on health care? Is columnist Goar's figure of 40% correct? To me, a 10% discrepancy on a figure of 38 BILLION dollars shows an unacceptable margin for error. Who is accountable here?

The Liberal's own legislated health monopoly, the NHS, said it needs money, yet Liberal health minister Smitherman said: "I do think the Niagara Health System likes to rely a little bit too much on the idea that it's all about money, and I think that's a fallacy. I think (that argument) can become a little too relied upon. What it kind of suggests is the only thing that's the answer to health-care woes is a fiscal free-for-all, spend whatever you want." (St. Catharines Standard, Dec.7, 2007)

This from the demagogue who relies too much on the protectionism of monopoly; who denies individual patients spending whatever they want themselves for their own health care.

The Savant-Known-As-Smitherman will decide what treatment patients will get in the non-competitive monopoly system which he runs! Smitherman's fallacy - and it's a great big one, going to the heart of the health care debate - is pretending that he alone can control health care through an almost-insane desire to limit patient's own choices in the Liberal-controlled system.
Smitherman has already acknowledged that the province 'can't do it all'; yet then he continues to propagate his institutionalized monopoly, to the detriment of beleaguered patients.
He beats around the bush, intimating that if it's not about the money, then it's about what... the NHS apparently being fiscally irresponsible, free-for-all spenders, who must be reigned in within Smitherman-allotted budgets... is that what he was saying to Souter??
And if you can't do that, then what? Don't ask for more money...?
Is that the scenario which was unfolding in Niagara's and other Ontario hospitals since the Liberals were elected in 2003, and which was downplayed by the Liberals, despite being in full-blown disaster mode during the 2007 election? Is there not a link between Smitherman's health-care allocations and death-rates? How can anyone know?

One can't help wonder about Smitherman's logic when he tries to blame the community and media's reaction to the Brampton situation. But... the community marched because Smitherman's system failed! Not two weeks after the October 2007 election, the Liberals were bragging about their shiny new Brampton hospital, yet by December the "community" had the audacity to stage a protest march, rather than cower, suffer and wait, as Smitherman would have preferred.

Smitherman's line "Let's not pretend that the old Peel Memorial was a hospital that was operating perfectly and was unblemished in the community's eyes" (Toronto Star, Jan.7, 2008) just exemplifies the callousness of this demagogue. How dare these rag-tag ungrateful community protestors blemish Smitherman's grand Ministry Of Monopolism?! Smitherman said that Peel had "challenges there for a good number of years"... of which four years were under Smitherman's own complete control!

As interesting as it is to see Smitherman dump and dismiss the concerns of the socialist-infected Ontario Health Coalition, nevertheless, an independent investigation might reveal some truths supportive of their claims regarding how the Liberals run their monopoly.

However, it should be noted that neither the socialists (who want despotic state-run medicare even worse than the Liberals do), nor the Liberals, in their cat-fight, acknowledge patient-choice and the co-existence of a private-parallel health system. They can continue to squawk and fight over their P3-or-not-to-be models for the rest of eternity, as long as in the meantime, sick Ontarians, who are sick of their endless squabbles, can get their needed care elsewhere in Ontario. Patients should not be kept hostage in an NDP/Liberal medicare monopoly which worships at the alter of Tommy Douglas. One can't help but wonder how less fractious and more productive it would be if hospitals were allowed to be built and operated privately, without politicians.

If people had protested and marched in St. Catharines upon hearing of our local system's mortality-rates, would we also have had the Ombudsman looking at the NHS by now? Would we see Smitherman and Bradley smugly tut-tutting and reprimanding us, as they are now? Will we face the same state-run incompetencies with St. Catharines' proposed hospital, if it gets built? Will the "challenges" of high mortality rates simply continue, un-investigated, in the new NHS facility?

For Smitherman to blather on about reform and status-quo is beyond the pale: his own Liberals are the status-quo, and they didn't institute any market or patient-choice reforms. Is the Liberal Commitment to the Future of Medicare Act at the heart of any of these problems? Will we ever be able to tell?

During the 2007 election, Smitherman's Liberals pretended there was nothing wrong with their health monopoly; not three months later, the Ombudsman is hovering over a number of different regional hospitals: this is surely a sign, that despite the Liberal's don't-worry-be-happy facade, the system was sick even during the election.

Now that parts of Ontario's health system have been 'cleared' for possible Ombudsman investigation, why do the Liberals not give the Ombudsman access to investigate Ontario's entire health system?

Or should we just save the money and wait, hoping that the McCreith/Holmes judicial challenge will beat down Smitherman's legislated Liberal demagoguery?

To Smitherman, private-parallel and patient payer choice and competition in health-care are anathema. His pretension for 'reform' is just fiddling with more GRAND-SCHEME-STATIST-WE-KNOW-WHAT'S-BEST-FOR-YOU Liberalism.

I hope that those Michael Moore Americans who so cherish our failing single-payer health care system can only see the sicko, flicking Liberal B.S. which Ontario's patients have no choice but to deal with.
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