Check out the facts on our main three demands: more public hospitals in Brampton, stopping privatization, and OHIP for all.

More Public Hospitals in Brampton

BRAMPTON AND CALEDON HAVE A COMBINED POPULATION OF 827,500 (STATSCAN) & ONE FULLY FUNCTIONING HOSPITAL WITH ONLY 645 BEDS. IT IS CONSIDERED BY MANY TO BE THE EPICENTRE OF HALLWAY HEALTHCARE.

• Over 80% of all patients spend over 8 hours in Brampton’s ER before being admitted (2022).

• Brampton Civic Hospital and Peel Memorial Centre for Integrated Health and Wellness are both P3 “Public Private Partnership” facilities, with buildings and non-medical services not owned by Ontario, but by a private consortium called William Osler Health System, who has a 25 year contract to the government.
• The total cost of the Brampton P3 hospital is more than $300 million higher in present dollars (2003/04) than if the hospital was built publicly. This meant that Peel Memorial Centre could not be opened as a full service hospital as was promised.
• Brampton City Council declared a state of health emergency in January 2020, and called for 850 new hospital beds to be created in the expansion of Peel Memorial Centre. There will only be 250 beds in the expansion.
• Brampton Civic treated 4,352 patients in hallways in a single year, according to a 2017 briefing note obtained by the provincial NDP.
• Brampton has high traffic & 750K people, plus residents of Caledon who already have to travel farther and therefore wait longer just to arrive.
• It‘s dangerous to have just one hospital to which to bring critical patients.
• According to the 2021 census, 80.6% of Bramptonians are a visible minority, and 52.9% were born outside of Canada. The institutional neglect of the health of a majority-immigrant, majority POC city by the Ontario government is very telling of how resources are being prioritized in Ontario.

Stop Privatization

ONTARIO’S GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN DEFUNDING OUR PUBLIC HEALTHCARE SYSTEM AND PRIVATIZING SURGERIES, TESTING, AND ONLINE DOCTOR’S VISITS.

• Ontario underspent its own healthcare budget by $1.7 billion last year alone, and funds its public hospitals at the lowest rate in Canada.
• Private hospitals and clinics routinely overcharge by 3-10x the cost, upselling medically unnecessary services, and simultaneously billing OHIP and the patient. All of these practices are federally illegal under the Canada Health Act.
• Our surgical backlog could be erased in just a few months by extending hours of existing operating rooms, which sit empty late afternoons, evenings & weekends.
• Privatization punishes poverty, seniors, disabled people, the middle class, and many other protected classes, especially considering the cost of living crisis, and can make people choose between delaying care or losing their home.
• Private hospitals and clinics have worse safety records, worse effectiveness, and take the easier, more profitable cases from public hospitals, leaving complex, expensive care to public hospitals, decimating their budget & closing them.
• Private clinics take staff from public hospitals, whose staff are underpaid and burnt out due to purposeful defunding by Ontario.
• A record number of emergency rooms have temporarily or permanently closed this year, in large part to staffing issues.

OHIP For All

THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO CUT THE VERY SUCCESSFUL PHYSICIAN AND HOSPITAL SERVICES FOR UNINSURED PERSONS (PHUP) PROGRAM THAT SAVED LIVES AT THE BEGINNING OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. UNINSURED PEOPLE DELAYING OR NOT GETTING CARE FOR FINANCIAL REASONS COSTS THEM WORSE HEALTH OUTCOMES AND COSTS ONTARIO MONEY.

• Many residents of Brampton and Caledon are uninsured, whether they are undocumented, temporary foreign workers, non-status migrants, those with status in process, or those waiting for an unnecessary 3-month waiting period.
• Migrants and newcomers are essential to Canadian society and our economy.
• Cutting this program instead of expanding it has cost the government of Ontario money and strained our already-strained medical system.
• Cutting PHUP cost residents much more. Lack of healthcare access can lead to financial hardship and catastrophic medical bills, worsened health from delayed care, and moral distress, trauma, and suffering to patients and providers.
• These residents live, study, and work here and they are human beings deserving of care.

If you are as horrified by this information as we are, please send an email to your representative or perform another action on our Act! page. Let us know what you think, and if you have anything to add, by sending us an email below, or commenting on or sharing our social media. You can also sign up to volunteer on our Act! page.

LINKS TO LEARN FROM

Here are a variety of links from around the web talking about some of the issues we are facing. Remember to always check the date and keep that in mind: there is unfortunately not a lot of up-to-the-minute reporting on hospitals in Brampton, but there are a lot of great articles from years past.

Ontario Health Coalition

• www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
• Ontario Health Coalition Youtube
• OHC: BRIEFING NOTE & FACT SHEETS: Health Care Privatization Fact Sheets & Information
• ANALYSIS/SUBMISSION: Brampton P3 Audit: Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in ‘Mistakes’ in Brampton P3 Finances
• Ontario Health Coalition Backgrounder Brampton Hospital Crisis Warnings and Broken Promises January 24, 2020
• Ontario Health Coalition Review and Analysis of Ontario Auditor General’s Report on the Brampton Civic Hospital P3 December 9, 2008
• Ontario Hospital Crisis Province-Wide and By Community
• OHC: Brampton P3 Audit: Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in ‘Mistakes’ in Brampton P3 Finances
• Submission to the Ontario Auditor General on the William Osler Health Centre Brampton Public-Private Partnership (P3) Hospital Development

News Media

More than 80% of all Brampton Civic patients waiting 8 hours in emergency

• The Pointer: Brampton’s Abandoned Healthcare System: “Why do we have to suffer?”
• The Globe and Mail: In this PPP, taxpayers are the ones who paid
• Attack on Working Conditions, Wage Cut Not the Thanks “Pandemic Heroes” Can Accept Say Brampton Hospital Staff Protesting Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. (2021)
• “We Were There for Patients in the Pandemic, Don’t Betray Us,” Osler and Georgetown Hospital Staff Protesting Tuesday and Wednesday to Fight Wage Cuts and Concessions (2021)

Additional Scholarly Sources

• OECD: Hospital Beds and Occupation
• Canadian Medical Association Journal: Failing grade for public–private partnership hospitals

BrCHC and PRHC in the News!

• Protest at Brampton Civic will push for better healthcare following release of alarming Ontario Health Coalition report highlighting PC move to privatization
• CBC News: Not enough South Asian women in Peel get pap tests — and it could be a matter of ‘life and death’

‘No More Hallway Healthcare’: Rally calls for more beds and no for-profit patient fees in Brampton

BrCHC on CTV News Toronto! OHC REPORT (& BCH Protest Announced)

The Pointer: Peel Region Health Coalition organizing referendum on private versus public healthcare

Peel Health Coalition protests against privatization of healthcare in Ontario

• Press Release: Brampton Caledon Health Coalition Healthcare and Health Equity Town Hall
• Brampton Guardian: Peel Health Coalition finds mass opposition to privatization in local vote

Protest at Brampton Civic will push for better healthcare following release of Ontario Health Coalition report highlighting PC move to privatization

Local Politics

Hospital Crisis in Brampton

Do you know a really great article, video, or post we should share? Send us an email.