Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programs!
Dismantling Quebec's Public Health System Cannot Be Justified
- Pierre Soublière - 
One of the things the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore is
the extent to which private interests have a stranglehold over all
aspects of our lives, including our mode of governance.
This situation came tragically to light with the incapacity of
seniors' homes and long-term care facilities to face the pandemic and
the need for public services managed and organized to answer the needs
of patients and care providers. For example, one of the ongoing
problems that continue during the second wave is staff mobility in
homes,
because of staff shortages and the dependence on private employment
agencies who send workers from one workplace to another, increasing the
dangers of transmission of the virus for them and the people they care
for.
Following the tragic deaths of the first wave, the questioning of
homes managed for profit at the expense of the well-being of seniors
was such that the Premier of Quebec felt it necessary to suggest that
the government could possibly "nationalize" private long-term care
homes. At about the same time, the Quebec Finance Minister asked the
Centre for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations
(CIRANO) to conduct a study on the place of health in the economic
recovery of Quebec.
Founded in 1994, CIRANO is subsidized by, among others, the Quebec
government and its "partners" -- federal and Quebec institutions such
as the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Caisse de
dépôt et de placement du Québec -- and by a number of
big private enterprises, such as BMO Financial Group, Manulife
Financial
Corporation, Power Corporation of Canada, Bell Canada and Rio Tinto.
Studies produced by this centre generally approach economic and
social programs from the point of view of promoting the privatization
of public services and social programs. Here are the titles of two such
studies: "Public-private partnerships: an option to discover," and "The
private sector within a public health care system: the French
example." The aim of the latter is explicit, that is, to "put an end to
the greatest obstacle to improving the Canadian and Quebec health care
system, that is, the irrational opposition by a number of political and
lobby groups to a more active and integrated role for health, insurance
and direct supply institutions and enterprises, for profit or not for
profit, in our health care system."
 This
is
exactly the approach taken in the study commissioned by the Quebec
government, published last September and entitled "Health care at the
heart of the economic recovery in Quebec." On the matter of seniors'
homes, casting aside all evidence to the contrary, the researchers
state: "Government does not have the necessary means nor the
expertise to take up the concept of seniors' homes on its own [...] By
seniors' homes, we mean private apartment buildings destined to
accommodate autonomous and semi-autonomous seniors [...] The private
sector, for profit or not for profit, has the required infrastructure
and competences needed to realize this project for seniors adapted to
their
health conditions."
Having
declared that the government has neither the means nor the expertise,
the authors of the report suggest that the government should
nevertheless subsidize these private seniors' homes' medical equipment
and services. In other words, public funds should be put at the
disposal of private owners and their shareholders so that they can
continue to make maximum profits on the backs of seniors, without
themselves having to reinvest the monies extracted from seniors into
the services they provide.
On the issue of health workers, having listed the existing problems
in health care which are well-known, the authors of the report suggest
as a "solution" the improvement of "work organization" through a set of
strategies aimed at "optimizing the utilization and contribution of
workers." These "strategies" generally amount to "doing more with
less." They are precisely the strategies -- now being imposed through
ministerial decree -- which have led to the present situation which is
literally pushing frontline workers to the brink and allowing the
relentless dismantling of the public health system. Largely due to the
efforts of workers and their organizations to make their working
conditions and the overall conditions in health care known, it can be
predicted that these "strategies" will have tragic consequences
for the well-being of the people. Clearly, the workers will have to
step up their fight in order to defend their rights and the rights of
all, as well as political organizing to put forward independents
politics of their own which remove the system of party governance which
serves the rich.
This article was published in
Number 84 - December 15, 2020
Article Link:
Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programs!: Dismantling Quebec's Public Health System Cannot Be Justified - Pierre Soublière
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
