Health care advocates demonstrate outside Parliament Hill (Ben Treidlinger photo)
Health care advocates from the Ottawa Valley say a last-second trip to Parliament Hill was an eye-opening experience.
The Renfrew County Health Coalition’s Lila Paddock and Leona Haley were among over 200 representatives from health care coalitions across Canada who met in Ottawa to demonstrate and lobby federal and provincial ministers to protect public health care in the wake of an unsettling proposal currently being considered in the west.
Their main goal was to be visible and show strength for the Ontario and Canadian Health Coalitions as the two groups call on the provincial governments to properly fund their health care systems and for the federal government to use their authority to make sure it happens.
Haley says they were also able to connect with advocates who flew in from Alberta, Manitoba, Vancouver, and Windsor to lend their voices to the cause, all of whom made a big impression with their dedication to pushing back against the growing privatization of health care happening in certain provinces.
The Renfrew County Health Coalition will look to carry the momentum gained from their trip to Ottawa this Tuesday, March 3rd, when they and the local Ontario Council of Hospital Unions branch union will march outside the Pembroke office of MPP Billy Denault, 84 Isabella Street, to protest against further cuts to the Ontario health care system.
(written by Kasey Egan)