The Ontario legislature is in the final stages of debate regarding Bill 36.  The Local Health System Integration Act, 2005 is a bill that will change Ontario’s health care delivery system.  Bill 36 totally reorganizes the way that health care decisions are going to be made across the province. 

There are some serious problems with this legislation that myself and the PC Party have been highlighting for almost year now. 

Before the bill was initially introduced, the government started to appoint people to LHIN boards in anticipation of their legislation.  There were many qualified people put forward to serve on LHIN boards across the province, but when we called them to appear to talk about what they would be doing, they did not know what their responsibilities would be.  We tried to block these appointments from taking place until the legislation was introduced.  There was simply no real information available about what the LHIN boards would be responsible for.

The Local Health Integration Network that covers the riding of Haliburton-Victoria-Brock is the Central East LHIN.  It is the LHIN with the second largest population and covers an area including Scarborough and the regions of Haliburton, Kawartha Lakes, Durham and Peterborough.  It is a massive area, and last spring I first raised the concern in the legislature that smaller communities could lose their voices as a part of such a massive organization. 

The government is promoting their LHIN legislation as being something that is going to give more responsibility and more say to the local people.  But that simply is not the case.  Local people may not be the final decision-makers.  That power will rest with the Minister of Health who has been given Kremlin style control over health care through this bill.

This centralization of power in health care in the Minister’s office is something that we believe is contrary to the public interest.  It is, in fact, the biggest centralization of power in the history of the Ministry of Health.   It is disingenuous of the government to be doing this under the guise of creating some mechanisms and Local Health Integration Boards that are supposed to empower local citizens.  The bill is filled with clauses that give unilateral, arbitrary, unchecked power to the Minister of Health.  He can close hospitals, cut off services and amalgamate hospitals unilaterally, without a hearing, without anybody knowing anything about it.

The LHIN legislation as it currently stands gives the Health Minister unilateral power to close or transfer services in hospitals, and to take charitable donations and re-allocate them to other hospitals hundreds of miles away.  Such powers do not currently exist in the Public Hospitals Act.

The Ontario PC Caucus has opposed this bill at every step along the way, and will continue to work against passage of this bill.  Real local input is crucial.  I have worked hard with local residents to improve health care in our communities.  People who gave their time and money to the local fundraising efforts for their hospital should be guaranteed that this money stays at the local hospital. 
I have been hearing from local groups and individuals who are very concerned about what impact LHINs will have on health care delivery in our communities.  Please continue to forward your concerns to me so that I can continue to keep the government informed about what people in this riding think.  They need to hear from more from people and less from bureaucrats.