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OPSEU’s Public is Better campaign features radio ads, online advertising, and an animated video that tells what’s happening to hospitals right now.
Toronto (20 Jan. 2016) — “Kathleen Wynne’s attack on our hospitals has got to stop, and it’s got to stop now.”
That’s the word from Warren (Smokey) Thomas, President of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU/NUPGE), as Ontario health care workers take to the streets and airwaves this week to protest Liberal government cuts and privatization that are destroying public hospitals.
Funding cuts or privatization — both hurt health care
“Public health care is bleeding from a thousand cuts, and it’s Kathleen Wynne who’s wielding the knife,” said Thomas. “She’s cut hospital budgets every year since she’s been Premier, and what she can’t cut, she is privatizing."
“She has no mandate to do this,” he said. “Nobody voted to destroy public health care.”
OPSEU’s Public is Better campaign features radio ads, online advertising, and an animated video that tells what’s happening to hospitals right now. OPSEU/NUPGE members will also be joining the Ontario Health Coalition at rallies across the province to mark the pre-budget hearings of the Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs.
Public hospitals need major transfusion of funding
“Our message to this government, and to all MPPs, is that enough is enough,” said Sara Labelle, OPSEU Chair of the Hospital Professionals Division. “This provincial budget must include a major transfusion of cash for our public hospitals. Our hospitals are the beating heart of public health care in every community in this province, and if they’re not strong, Medicare as we’ve known it is dead.”
OPSEU/NUPGE represents some 18,000 hospital professionals and a total of 37,000 workers across the health care system. For more information on the campaign, visit www.publicisbetter.ca.
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 360,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE