NDP: Federal health funding must go into public system

QUEEN'S PARK — Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles issued the following statement in response to the Prime Minister's meeting with Premiers on health care transfers:

"Ontarians cherish our health care system - health care that is publicly funded and publicly delivered.

Our province needs more federal funding to help fix our health care crisis, but that funding must go into our public system - into recruiting and retaining our health care workers with fair and respectful wages.

We need bold, innovative changes to address our staffing crisis and surgery backlog within the public system, not outside of it.

Doug Ford has been deliberately starving public health care for years. He's been suppressing health care workers' wages and sitting on billions of dollars in unspent health care funding.

The NDP will continue to stand up against the Ford government's plan to pour money into private, for-profit health clinics—a move that will further drive workers out of hospitals and create a system where those who can afford to pay will get better, faster care. Everyone else will be left waiting."