In a letter to the editor, Sudbury RN Maria Casas, who is policy and political action executive network officer for the local chapter, writes about the dangers of moving towards for-profit health care (Sudbury.com, Nov. 17).

Terry Martyn’s recent letter clearly describes the concerns with Doug Ford’s plan to introduce more private health care to reduce wait times for care and increase efficiencies in Ontario’s health-care system. 

Increasing capacity in other centres not only erodes our public health system, it threatens to worsen it. The already stretched health human resources can only be further depleted if nurses and other regulated professionals leave the public system to work elsewhere.

Furthermore, for-profit health care compromises quality, costs more, expands a two-tier system, and worsens wait times. We are already facing a crisis in our public system – this will make it worse.

A recent CBC investigation revealed that the provincial government is paying private clinics as much as twice the amount it reimburses the public system for the same procedures. This cannot equate to a cost-efficient way to get more surgeries done, as the premier and health minister have promised.  It does equate to great profits for the private sector. 

As Mr. Martyn stated, allowing private, for-profit care is an overly simplistic solution to a complex problem and it’s a bad idea.