(November 14, 2025)

By: Freq 90.5/Oldies 96.7 News staff

The Ontario Health Coalition is warning about the long-term consequences of health-care privatization, pointing to new research from overseas that it says mirrors decisions being made in Ontario today.

In reports released by Professor Allyson M. Pollock and Graham Kirkwood of Newcastle University, the research outlines how two decades of privatization in England — including shifting funding from the National Health Service (NHS) to private providers for surgeries such as knee, hip and cataract procedures — has led to reduced public capacity, longer wait times, and widening health inequalities. The findings note poorer and less healthy patients are waiting longer for care as a two-tier system emerges.

By contrast, Scotland expanded its NHS capacity without relying on private clinics and has not seen inequalities grow to the same extent.

Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra says those trends offer a cautio

(November 17, 2025)

By: BarrieToday Staff

Labour and health officials were in Barrie today to shed light on academic reports around privatization of hospital surgeries in England.

They say this led to growing inequality, longer wait times and disruption of services in the public health-care system.

Allyson Pollock, co-author of the reports and professor emerita at Newcastle University, has been investigating cataract, knee and hip surgeries in England and Scotland over a 20-year period.

She says the current system in England benefits wealthier patients who can "jump the queue" by accessing care at private, for-profit facilities, while the poorest and less healthy people suffer longer wait times for hip and knee surgery due to reduced capacity in public hospitals.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) says the reports contrast extensive privatization with Scotland, which continued to invest in public health care and was able to increase surgical rates without using the pri

The OHC notes that as funding is diverted from Ontario’s public hospitals to private clinics (predominantly for-profit), the most affluent people benefit at the expense of the majority of people.

According to Hurley, there’s also an evident divide in access to care since virtually all private clinics in Ontario are located in the wealthiest neighbourhoods of large urban centres where there is a sizable market of wealthier people who can afford to pay extra user fees.

That means rural areas and small towns like Midland don’t typically have private clinics, he notes.

Hurley also points to a study published last year by the Canadian Medical Association, which determined that privatization of cataract surgeries in Ontario correlated with increasing inequity in access to care.

According to the CMA report, the most affluent people increased access to care by 22 per cent while the most marginalized suffered a nine per cent decrease in surgical rates.

Hurley says that it’s essential for O

(November 27, 2025)

By: Iris Gorfinkel, Toronto Star

Ontarians need to be on high alert. Alberta has taken a major step toward privatizing health care. Bill 55 will allow surgeons to work in both public hospitals and private‑pay clinics. Under this dual-practice model, cataract surgeries and joint replacements done during business hours would be covered by the province, while the same procedures in evenings or on weekends could be sold to patients for out-of-pocket fees.

Alberta would also let investor‑run corporations operate public hospitals — turning them into profit centres and throwing the doors open to a two‑tier system. It’s framed as “choice, efficiency and innovation,” but it effectively turns patient wait-lists into a customer list, targeting those who can pay with shorter waits.

This sets a concerning precedent. Ontario doesn’t have a Bill 55 by name, but a version of this is already taking shape through expanding for‑profit clinics and extra fees. We’re promised “you’ll

(November 28, 2025)

By: Jason Setnyk, Seaway News

Privatization of hospital surgeries in England has been “catastrophic” and should warn Ontario, Prof. Allyson Pollock told reporters at the Cornwall Public Library on Friday.

Pollock, professor emerita at Newcastle University, joined Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra and OCHU-CUPE president Michael Hurley to release new research on two decades of privatized cataract, hip, and knee surgeries in England and Scotland. England, she said, used public funds to contract procedures to for-profit clinics, weakening public hospitals. “Our studies show that diverting money from public hospitals to private clinics has destabilized services and training and shifted staff away from public hospitals,” Pollock said. While wait times initially fell for patients able to access private clinics, she said inequalities grew as poorer and sicker patients waited longer for care in England, unlike in Scotland, which kept surgeries in

"In fact, 41 percent of working-age Americans—or 72 million people—have medical bill problems or are paying off medical debt, up from 34 percent in 2005. If you add in the 7 million elderly adults who are also dealing with these issues, a total of 79 million Americans have medical bill or debt problems."

Population of Canada in 2025 ~ 40.2 - 41.7 million.

Links: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/survey-79-million-americans-have-problems-medical-bills-or-debt

Canadians’ medical debt largely driven by dental bills, prescription medications Healthcare related expenses pushed almost 18% of Canadians into debt. The poll, covering Canada, the U.S. and Australia, found Canadians faced the second highest amount of healthcare-related debt after the U.S. In total, 17.5% of Canadians are in debt because of healthcare costs. Dental checkups and prescription medications were the most likely sources of healthcare debt.

What ongoing healthcare costs do people pay for? In Canada, dental check-ups was in number one followed by prescription medications, then “none of the above”, followed by gym memberships.

Links: https://nbhc.ca/health-in-the-news/canadians-medical-debt-largely-driven-dental-bills-prescription-medications

https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/health-insurance/features/how-much-do-we-value-our-health/

Updated Nov 20, 2025 7:44 am.

"Among the findings was a lack of due diligence in the transfer of services, poor risk assessment by AHS, and the decision to proceed despite knowing the main objective of saving money was unlikely to be achieved.

The report points to then-health minister Adriana LaGrange as having pressed for the move, with her department accused of undermining AHS in the process.

In the spring of 2022, the Alberta government signed a 15-year contract with DynaLife to fully privatize lab testing services in the province. Less than a year after the transition, the province bought out DynaLife in a multi-million dollar deal that returned the lab contract to Alberta Precision Labs (APL), which is part of AHS."

https://calgary.citynews.ca/2025/11/19/alberta-dynalife-report/

(November 14, 2025)

By: Global News

The Ontario Health Coalition and CUPE are concerned about the potential consequences or privatizing surgeries in Ontario. According to research from Allyson Pollock, a professor at Newcastle University, an increase in contracting out cataract, hip and knee surgeries to for-profit facilities in England led to increased inequalities, reduced capacity and longer wait times at public hospitals. Those findings were presented during a press conference at the Peterborough Public Library on Thursday morning. CUPE and the Ontario Health Coalition say the province can learn from this research and apply the lessons to its own healthcare system.

Link to video coverage: https://globalnews.ca/video/11526752/ontario-health-coalition-cupe-warn-ontario-of-consequences-of-privatizing-surgeries

(November 11, 2025)

By: CBC News National

New research suggest privatizing surgeries can lead to longer wait times. Christine Birak has the findings.

Link to video coverage: https://youtu.be/CxLxR2fbsn0?t=1457

(November 3, 2025)

By: Joanna Frketich, The Hamilton Spectator (behind a paywall)

–> Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, is quoted within:

Three patients were included in internal reviews of tonsil surgery at McMaster Children’s Hospital, documents released during the freedom of information process show for the first time.

The reviews were triggered by the deaths of two children after tonsillectomy surgeries in May and June 2024.

The public has a right to know what happened to the third patient, said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, which advocates to protect and improve the health-care system.

“It is shocking to me that the hospital does not feel that it should be accountable to the public,” Mehra said. “Why are there three patients in the internal review? There is a compelling public interest to know this, and one would think it would be in the hospital’s interest to be transparent and open, at the very least, to

By: Ontario Today with Amanda Pfeffer

Ontario Health Coalition Executive Director Natalie Mehra and Dr. Danyaal Raza were on CBC Radio’s Ontario Today’s provincial open-line program to discuss the expansion of private health care and to answer the question "The cost of private health care: How much did you pay?"

Link to radio interview: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-45-ontario-today/clip/16184063-how-much-paid-private-health-care