Think twice before supporting private health care

Dear Editor,

The latest move to privatize some areas of Alberta Health Services by the UCP government is a slippery slope.

I always maintain that governments don’t care about people but they care about money, and we can see that in our present provincial government.

Unfortunately like many governments, they are only looking in the short term.

I look to my own experience, when I was in Ontario in the mid 1980s, the province allowed physicians to opt out of OHIP. Those of us who could not afford to pay doctor’s fees were left with the doctors who stayed in OHIP and these were not “the cream of the crop”.

When this foolish experiment was over, I became pregnant but stubbornly stayed with the same doctor. This doctor when I grew bigger than expected accused me of eating too much,and finally gave me an ultrasound after he heard the two heartbeats.

I gave birth two weeks later to preemie twins that were nine-and-a-half weeks premature. You can only imagine how expensive their care was in hospital compared to a normal delivery.

I was in hospital for 10 days and they were in hospital for seven weeks. They are healthy now 33 years later.

My point, as most in health care know, is if people have access to good publiclyfunded health care, this saves money. Privately-funded health results in people getting good health care who can afford it and people who can’t, get the preventative health care and higher health care costs down the road.

In other words, “Penny Wise Pound Foolish.”

Diane MacNaughton Redcliff