NDP to call on House of Commons to hold emergency debate on private healthcare: Jagmeet Singh

As the Members of Parliament prepare to return Monday for the first House of Commons session of 2023, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh stated that the party intends to call upon an emergency debate regarding the privatization of Canadian healthcare.

According to the NDP leader, the privatization of healthcare will add to the stress of the already overburdened Canadian healthcare sector as doctors and other healthcare staff could be poached by private players in the healthcare sector.

Singh had previously been holding roundtable discussions regarding the overburdened healthcare sector in the country, which witnessed an influx like never before in the past few months due to the surge of the triple threat of respiratory diseases,i.e., RSV, influenza and Covid-19, in the past few months.

Provinces like Ontario, Alberta and  Saskatchewan have already started taking steps to shift some stake of their provincial healthcare to for-profit facilities.

This month, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that the province will be working toward expanding private surgical care to reduce the wait times and backlogs of surgeries in the province.

The NDP also expressed worry over the potential of for-profit facilities trying to upsell patients on services not covered by the province, according to media reports.

“Health care is already dramatically understaffed, and for-profit facilities will poach doctors and nurses — cannibalizing hospitals, forcing people to wait longer in pain and wracked with anxiety,” the NDP leader stated to media outlets.