Dear Editor:
Our public healthcare system is being systematically dismantled by the Ford government. One of his first actions on taking office was to announce the reduction of public health agencies to a mere 10 province-wide.
The folly of this was demonstrated by the urgent need to have enough public health staff on the ground to meet the pandemic emergency.
The public health system is being deliberately underfunded to create an emergency, so that Ford can claim that private health care is needed. It is obvious and proven in the U.S. and other countries that for-profit health care will cost more, not less. Private health care also cherry picks clients leaving cases that are less profitable to treat to the public system, exacerbating the under-funding crisis.
Ford is deliberately undermining our vital health care to line the pockets of private clinics.
This must be stopped or we shall have a disastrous situation like the U.S. in which vast numbers of people suffer without adequate access to health care.
Pamela Fielding,
Guelph