Nova Scotians must say no to private, for-profit healthcare in our province

As president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, I am deeply concerned about our government’s move to use public money for private mental health care. This new plan to spend up to $10 million on private professionals for non-urgent mental health services is a step in the wrong direction. Let’s be clear: this is not about improving care for Nova Scotians. It’s about slowly shifting our health system towards privatization, like we see in the United States. And that’s not what we want or need here in Nova Scotia. The government is silent about how much of this money will end up as profit in the pockets of private providers.

They are lining the pockets of private businesses with our tax dollars instead of strengthening our public health care system. That is just not okay. We need to invest every cent of our healthcare budget into our public system: that means hiring more public sector mental health professionals, improving working conditions to keep the ones we have, and expanding public services. Instead, it diverts the money to private providers with a profit motive related to our health needs. This is like putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm: it may look like something is being done, but the damage remains.

Our public mental health system needs more support, not competition from private providers. What’s worse, this could be just the start. Once we open that door to privatization in mental health care, what’s next? Will the government hand more health services to private companies with a profit-making motive? Talk is cheap: the government preaches universal mental health care. But its practice is quite the opposite. Universal care means public services accessible to all and not driven by the motive of making a profit. This new plan fails on all counts. Sadly, we see a pattern here: underfunding by the government over the years, not investing in our public system, breaking it, and then using that as an excuse to bring in private providers. It is a sneaky way to help their business friends make money off our healthcare needs. Nova Scotians deserve better.

We need a government committed to strengthening and not debilitating our public health care system bit by bit. Every tax dollar needs to be put into public services to benefit the many, not handed over as fat profits to companies. We call on the government to reverse this decision and invest fully in our public mental health care system. Only then can Nova Scotians receive the needed care without regard for the cost or lining anybody’s pockets.