A Call to Defend Public Healthcare

February 3, 2023/Michelle Neill

Dear Premier King, Mr. Bevan-Baker, and Ms. Cameron,

As you are all well aware, Islanders are terrified about our broken health care system. I am asking each of you, and your respective parties, to support our call to bring in policies that defend and protect the Canada Health Act, which includes government investments in our publicly-funded, universal, comprehensive, and fully accessible health care system.

Unfortunately, we are seeing the stories on the news or reading in the paper about more ERs that are closing, increases in ambulance wait times, and more people looking for a family doctor on PEI than ever before. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

I am also hearing directly from health care workers, doctors, paramedics, administration, and patients about the real problems accessing care.

What is even more troubling for me and the Island New Democrats is the various jurisdictions, such as Alberta, Ontario and Nova Scotia, who are diverting public money by using more private, for-profit health care models and companies to deliver inadequate care. That is not an effective or efficient use of our public taxpayer dollars.

For instance, the Government of Ontario is implementing more for-profit surgery options
and giving people the option to pay for access to health care, which creates a twotiered
system, both for patients and health care workers.

Nova Scotia is expanding their private for-profit delivery of cataract eye surgeries, P3 hospitals and some routine surgeries when their public surgery suites are not even being used to full capacity.

We already have too much for-profit, private delivery of our patient care in our province and by increasing it, that will only deteriorate our public system and cause further resource and staffing issues.

Simply put, this is wrong.

I am respectfully asking each of you, and your parties, to support our vision of protecting our public health care system by reinvesting public funds into increasing the staff complement of healthcare workers and listening to the frontlines; who know best on how to fix the system for Islanders.

I look forward to your replies at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Michelle Neill
Leader of the Island New Democrats

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Michelle Neill

Michelle Neill

Michelle comes from an almost 30 year career in the federal public service. She’s held various roles including team leader and assistant manager. Shortly after starting her career, she quickly involved herself in her union as a local representative.

Locally, she involves herself in community organizations including Wings on Ice Skating Club, the Charlottetown Figure Skating Club, North Star Minor Hockey Association, Skate PEI, and Hockey PEI, and most recently with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) Central PEI.

She calls herself very fortunate to have an extremely supportive family, where her husband of 29 years, Robbie, and children, Keila (pronounced Kayla) and Taylor, have always supported her passion to help others even though it often meant time away from the family to gain specialized training.

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