Dear Editor:
Cambie Corporation has argued that for 20 years, private surgical and diagnostic clinics have been operating in B.C. without harming the public health-care system, and yet, over that exact period, wait times in the province have only gotten worse. With private clinics already making public wait times worse, I can imagine what will happen to public wait times if Cambie Corp. wins their case; wait times for people like me will become longer while my health deteriorates.This case is a corporation arguing for the right to charge as much as they want, while also getting subsidized by the public system.
This is where we, the people who cannot afford to pay big money for health care, lose our ability to access health care because we are unable to pay and are therefore pushed to the end of the waitlist.
We will become second class because we are able to rely on only public dollars for our health care; we will be financially unable to buy our way into the private system.
If Day gets his way, people like me will wait longer for care. Privatized care drains resources from the public system and leaves the rest of us with longer wait times and declining care while medical practitioners in this privatized system reap huge profits.
I am proudly Canadian and a part of that pride is the way that we allow people to access the care they need based on that need not their ability to pay.
We need improved public health care, the evidence has clearly shown that public solutions are the most effective way to decrease wait times for everyone.
— Shelley Tapp, North Vancouver
