Listen: CKMS News – 2023-07-04 – Jim Stewart of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition discusses Protecting Ontario’s public healthcare from privatization

By: dan kellar

As the efforts by the Ontario government to privatize public health care in Ontario accelerate, protests by health care workers and local residents have taken place across the province.  On June 26th over 200 people demonstrated in front of St. Mary’s hospital in Kitchener to tell the government “Healthcare is a Human Right, Hands off our Hospitals!”.

Attending the event were representatives from the Waterloo Region Health Coalition and today’s show features an interview with Jim Stewart, the chair of the Waterloo Region Health Coalition, a node in the Ontario Health Coalition whose goal is to defend public health care against privatization.

In the interview Stewart speaks on Doug Ford’s and the conservative government’s continuing privatization agenda, the work the Waterloo Region Health Coalition is undertaking and the growing movement within the healthcare system, and across the public sphere, that is organizing to support health care workers and protect public healthcare in Ontario.

For more information on the Waterloo Region Health Coalition, visit waterloohealthcoalition.org.

This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, Heritage Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.

Check out the archived versions of this program on radiowaterloo.ca/news, and listen to all the LJI content at canada-info.ca.

If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca