Privatizing life or death

Now that Canada is in the midst of a full-fledged reexamination of our health-care system, with privatization being looked upon increasingly favourably, HIV/AIDS activists are speaking out against rejigging our much-maligned Medicare. At a press conference on Monday, activists from Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto denounced any plans that they feel would make health care less accessible to those without the means to afford it. People living with HIV/AIDS, they say, are especially susceptible to the vagaries of a private health-care system.

“We wanted to highlight the concerns we have to the Romanow Commission [on the future of health care],” says Ralf Jürgens, executive director of the Montreal-based Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network. “We can afford Medicare, we need to afford it, and any cuts to it will affect the poorest and most marginalized first.”

Jürgens, like many others opposed to increased privatization, wants to educate the public as to why Medicare is in such a shoddy state. He blames cuts in provincial taxes and federal transfer payments rather than any innate flaw in the system itself. It is, therefore, salvageable, something of life and death importance to people living with HIV/AIDS.
“Many people suffering from [HIV/AIDS] are poor and marginalized, and if they have to pay for even part of their drugs and treatment, they will be even poorer,” he says.
On Monday, AIDS activist Philip Lundrigan made a presentation supporting universal public health care to the Romanow Commission in St. John’s, Newfoundland. :

—Patrick Lejtenyi