FEDERAL UPDATE

the current surgical backlog if the Ford government’s plan goes ahead.

But as Elizabeth Payne reported in the Ottawa Citizen earlier this week, most cataract patients in Ottawa are able to access corrective surgery within six months through our public system. But wait times for complex care cataract patients can be different.

How long will cataract patients wait for Dr. Kashif Baig’s services at Herzig? And how much will OHIP be billed for surgical procedures done there? These are important questions that, as I write these words, have no answers.

We also risk losing staff from an overburdened and underfunded public health care system to private care. Upselling and price gouging in private health care is common. These trends are great for private health care executives, but terrible for everyone else.

So let’s build a movement to save public health care. Join me and MPP Chandra Pasma for a health care leaders roundtable at noon on Feb. 3, 2023. Go to www.joelhardenmpp.ca for details. We’ll host Ottawa’s health care leaders, and you can tune in online. It’s time to get organized, and make good

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Ontario’s education workers showed us how to do that in 2022; inspired by their example, we can save public health care in