KHC Meeting with John Gerretsen – Nov 22, 2012
On November 22, four members of the Kingston Health Coalition met with Kingston MPP John Gerrestsen to discuss our concerns about using a public-private –partnership to rebuild St. Mary’s Hospital and the Kingston Psychiatric facility. We presented arguments around the increased cost of P3′s, the problems with the ‘value for money audit’ used to justify the higher cost and the problems of having private management operate a public hospital.
John Gerretsen made the following points in response – the counter arguments we presented are included in highlight:
1) John stated that if we do not support a P3 there will be no hospital built. More pointedly he said that if problems were made that could kill the deal.
We suggested that it would be more helpful when having an important discussion on a necessary hospital rebuild if it did not start off with threats and bullying. The issue is how much we are going to pay for a new hospital. Do we want to waste$100 million dollars we do not need to spend. We also outlined how the Request for Proposals (RFP) could be easily altered to a request to design and build the new hospital with public financing and public operation. If anything it would sped up the process and save millions of dollars. Pointed out that this was largely a political decision and that when the Ontario Health Coalition had help local plebiscites the government changed its approach to P3s.
2) John questioned why would any government build a P3 if it was so bad? Providence has no problem with the approach.
We pointed out that using private financing, while it costs more, did not show up as direct debt for the province rather it is a long term financial commitment which was more politically palatable. Also, the finance and construction industries stand to make high profits on the P3 and these industries dominate Infrastructure Ontario, the branch of the government responsible for rebuilding hospitals.
3) John said that it is all about the patients, and he will do whatever it takes to get the hospital. He is not concerned about the cost if that is what is necessary.
If it is all about the patients can we afford to waste $100 million dollars of health care money on extra payments to international finance companies, pension plans, multinational management firms, consultants and lawyers when there are many unmet patients needs that require resources. We also pointed out how patient care had suffered after the Royal Ottawa Hospital was rebuilt as a P3 with long term private management.
4) John argued that cost overruns and construction problems are covered under the P3. He never addressed the arguments about financing and maintenance even when we said there could be a design- build private contract with public funding and management. He went on and on about how the public sector cannot be trusted to build a hospital
Whether the public sector can build hospitals, we have no doubt it could, this is not the point. Private sector contractors have almost always been used to build hospitals, an approach we would support in this case, not sure what else to say since John would not address our concerns about financing and operation.
5) John said it is important to state the real reason we objected to the P3 approach that unions will lose their members.
We pointed out, which John agreed with, that the labour issues were covered by the Public Service Labour Relations Act so this comment is irrelevant. This Act dictates how employees are affected when hospitals merge or transfer. John has couched this issue to suggest the OHC is partisan and it is only the self interest of unions that is our concern and we should remind him hospitals with union jobs are far more respectable in terms of care and service. Can anyone say C-deficile and contracted out cleaning staff. Our concern is a strong public health care system where every patient receives the care they need when they need it.
