Thank you.
I would like to just add to the comments of my colleague that we hear this all the time from doctors, and particularly nurses. One of the major concerns of our members is the agencies that nurses are moving towards. Quite understandably, they have better working conditions. They have better pay in some cases, yet our public dollars are going to agency nurses and it drains.... Where do these nurses come from? There is no magical machine to find nurses and doctors and people. They're coming from the public hospitals. That's where they're coming from.
This question was debated vigorously through the Cambie case in British Columbia. All the evidence was weighed and Justice Steeves clearly said that increased use of private for-profit facilities increases wait times, increases disparities and poaches health care professionals from our public system, whether it be family doctors and specialists or otherwise.
This is why we focus so much on the privatization of this and the increased reliance upon agencies and private for-profit clinics. It's a major problem. We need to improve working conditions. As my colleague, Pat Armstrong, always says, “the conditions of work are the conditions of care”. If we have good working conditions, we will get the good care. If not, we will see an exodus of people and it will make the problems worse.