Letter to the Editor
Editor,
Although we may wish to demonize our hospital board for their suggestion to close our O.R. it really has little to do with them. They are simply under a gun imposed by the present Liberal government and are being forced into making unpleasant decisions which causes a storm of local protest, thus diverting attention from what is really at stake.
Make no mistake, this is a totally political issue. The present Ontario government has squandered billions of dollars of our money on a succession of fiscal bungles and with an election coming up has to try and make everything in the garden look lovely.
Their answer is to gut rural Ontario.
Anyone who looked at the political map after the last election will realize that rural Ontario voted solidly Conservative and now we are having to pay the price. By sucking our rural communities dry by closing schools, reducing health care and by closing long term care beds this government is busy transferring funds to where their votes are and that is the GTA and other major urban centres. We can make all the noise we want, but it is completely lost on this government. They do not lose one single seat as a result and, to them, votes are all that count. Our health is of no interest to them, and their priorities were revealed by their cynical attempt to buy votes using our own money to reduce hydro rates.
Only one person hit the nail on the head at the most recent meeting when he asked the rhetorical question: “How do we change the government?”
David Blackburn, Meaford
