Smearing doctors doesn’t help health care

Re Physicians’ incomes at heart of dispute in

province, Feb. 10 It is only through an intellectually dishonest straw man argument that Dr. Philip Berger is able to dismiss Dr. Nadia Alam and other grassroots physician advocates as concerned only with their income and not with the health of their patients.

It’s true — simply paying doctors more is not a magic fix for the health-care system, but no one is actually saying that.

How does it help to consistently silence and ignore the critiques not just from physicians, but of the other health-care workers who opposed Bill 41and continued cuts to front-line services?

I stand with laid-off nurses, underpaid PSWs, the overburdened homecare system and my overworked physicians colleagues, all of whose concerns go unheard by an ineffective government.

Smearing physician advocates as single-mindedly pursuing money obscures any meaningful discussion we might be having about health care in Ontario. Dr. Michelle Cohen, Brighton, Ont. Re Paying MDs more won’t help, Feb. 18 I was disheartened to see the one-sided collection of letters the Star chose to publish. The authors suggest that robust investment in social programs would negate the need to address our failing health-care system. Both are necessary. Letting the government off the hook is negligent.

Shockingly, as presented, the pieces are more of a smear than a statement on our health-care system. It seems the authors all read the same “reinterpretation” of Dr. Alam’s article. She spoke of a broken healthcare system, not of incomes. The writers entirely miss the difference. The letter authors do not represent the majority of physicians across Ontario. Dr. John Aquino, Toronto