Albertans don’t want U.S. system
I am a disability-social work student at Mount Royal University. I am sending a copy of a letter I have written to Ron Liepert minister of health and welfare discouraging the privatization of public health care and the closure of more hospital beds in the province.
Please publish it in your newspaper.
Friends of Medicare have voiced their concerns about public health care in Alberta. I agree with the opinion that any form of privatization of the health care system would be detrimental for all Albertans except perhaps the very rich. If other less fortunate provinces are able to provide public health care is there any reason why Alberta which is Canada’s richest province cannot provide adequate health services? Presently a rich person in the U.S. is able to undergo costly surgery with very little waiting time while a poor person has a long period of waiting or has to die. Let me assure you that Albertans as well as other Canadians do not want this kind of system.
Closing hospitals is not in the best interest of the public nor is downsizing. People have long waiting periods now. Why worsen it? Seniors are on waitlists for years before being accepted into nursing homes. Closing hospital beds by placing long-term care patients in these homes will benefit nobody. Emergency patients are left on stretchers in corridors at the present time due to hospital closures.
Barbara Ann Bruce
Calgary
