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RELEASE: More than 56,000 Ontarians vote to stop the dismantling of community hospitals in volunteer-led referendum: Health Coalition
Posted: July 17, 2014
(April 7, 2014)
Over the last two and a half weeks, hundreds of volunteers with the Ontario Health Coalition have opened public voting stations to collect opinions about the government’s plan to cut services from local community hospitals and contract them out to high-volume private clinics. Balloting at over 100 voting stations and over 200 workplace votes resulted in 56,005 votes were cast in total of which 55,767 voted in favour of supporting local public hospitals and stopping the private clinics and 107 voted for private clinics.
“I don’t see how the government can ignore more than 56,000 Ontarians who in two short weeks voted to stop the private clinics,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “We tried to create a democratic forum so that people could choose whether or not they wanted private clinics and have their say. We were overwhelmed by the response. People have been emailing and calling us all weekend demanding to have a chance to vote to protect their local hospitals. Almost no one is in favour of private clinics.”
