Health care concerns are growing

By Dan Hilborn
Published Apr. 17, 2006


Burnaby council is unanimous in its concern about the increasing levels of privatization in the Canadian health-care system, but it isn't prepared to start throwing money at the problem.

"Health care is not a municipal responsibility," said Mayor Derek Corrigan after hearing a presentation from the Burnaby Community Coalition at the May 8 council meeting.

Longtime health-care advocate Elsie Dean was joined by union activist Valentina Maliarenko, small-business owner Barry Morley and SFU student society president Shawn Hunsdale in calling for council to authorize a staff study of the effects of privatization on the health-care system.

Dean said her main concerns are the secretive nature of the provincial government's public-private partnership plans - "We do not have full access to the partnership agreements they have reached," she said - and the failure to live up to its commitment to build 5,000 more long-term care beds across B.C.

Maliarenko claimed that the contracting-out of union jobs is still occurring at private hospitals and care centres in Burnaby. She alleged that Dania Home contracted out its care aides and gave layoff notices to its nurses this week.

Morley, who said he owns a business with 50 employees, said privatization almost always leads to higher costs for the taxpayers because, when something goes wrong, the public has to pay up. "That's bad business," Morley said.

And Hunsdale said the higher cost of privatized health care could force students to have to choose between paying their tuition fees or paying for medical coverage.

While Coun. Sav Dhaliwal spoke in favour of having city staff prepare a report on the possible effects of privatization in Burnaby, a majority of council said they had already done enough on the topic.

"In my opinion, health care is in a crisis," said Coun. Garth Evans. "It was in a crisis under the NDP and it's in a crisis under the Liberals. And I'm absolutely at my wit's end about what to do about it."

Corrigan also said that there is a long list of groups and organizations already looking into the effects of privatization in the health-care system, and it doesn't make sense to spend city tax dollars to duplicate those efforts.