Nurses talk about the new hospital

The following letter was sent to SooToday.com by Glenda Hubley, RN, who represents more than 500 registered nurses at Sault Area Hospital as Ontario Nurses' Association Local 46 coordinator and bargaining unit president.

********************* Over the next few weeks and right up until May 13, there is going to be a lot of information sharing and educating the community on P3 Hospitals or now being reframed by the government as Alternative Financing and Procurement Hospitals (AFPs).

The information sharing and education will demonstrate how "private for-profit" hospitals will affect the future of your health care.

No one is saying that Sault Ste. Marie does not need to a new hospital.

The controversy lies in where the financing to build the city's new hospital will come from.

Will it be built and financed with 100 percent public funds (as our previous hospitals have always been financed) or will it be built and financed with private funds through large private for-profit consortiums/investors.

Let's look at what we know:

We know that Mr. Roy Romanow was appointed by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien on April 4 2001, to head the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada.

The Commission's mandate was to recommend policies and measures to ensure the long-term sustainability of a universally accessible, high quality, publicly-administered health care system for all Canadians.

When a hospital is built by private for-profit investors, our hospital is no longer publicly financed or administered as there is now a third party involved in the overseeing/running of the building and some of its services such as maintenance.

We know that Mr. Roy Romanow came to Sault Ste. Marie and applauded our city for having one of the best publicly funded heath care systems in the world - specifically naming the Group Health Center.

Sault Ste. Marie should stand proud.

So why would we want to now turn to the private sector, for-profit financed to build our new Sault Area Hospital?

We know that the provincial government can borrow money at a much lower interest rate than can private investors.

So why would we want to mortgage our future for a hospital that is going to cost more in the long run?

There is an option – it's called public financing.

In health care, we look at "evidence-based medicine" to practice and provide care.

The data provides evidence-based medicine to achieve positive outcomes for patients and the health care system.

If we use that same analogy for funding of our new hospital, the evidence does not support positive outcomes when hospitals are built and financed through private for-profit consortiums/investors.

All one needs to do is look at the data/evidence from the British experience where private companies build premiums into the contracts of building their hospitals to cover off the risk they assume for meeting any deadlines.

The government's main rationale for private financing for hospitals is that cost overruns have occurred in publicly financed projects, and the government says they can't afford these costs any longer.

So, the government wants to hand over financing to the private sector.

Unfortunately the data/evidence does not support this logic.

What that data/evidence does show is that these risks are not paid for by the private financiers but by you and me – the taxpayers – over many, many years.

The data/evidence further shows, as in the British experience, bed numbers in their privately financed hospitals were reduced on average by 30 per cent, while budgets and clinical staff were cut by up to 25 per cent. I encourage you to research P3/Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP) hospitals.

Educate yourself and ask yourself:

• is it in our community's best interest to have our hospital built with private for profit funds or is it in our community's best interest to have our hospital built with public funds?

Then ask yourself:

• why does our government want to build our new hospital with private dollars, and why is it not building our new hospital with public dollars?

I'm sure once you research the facts; your answer will be the one that I arrived at - build and keep our health care system/hospital funded with 100 percent public financing.

There is no room for profit from our health care.

Please vote on May 13 to keep the building of our new hospital publicly financed.

It is in the community's best interest.

Glenda Hubley Local 46 Coordinator/BUP

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