For Immediate Release

September 28, 2003 

Royal Ottawa Hospital Affirms Health Care To Remain Public - Stop Using Project as Political Football 

OTTAWA - Royal Ottawa Hospital officials asserted that their new mental health facility, to be built by a private sector partner, would remain a public hospital, and that recent comments made by those opposed to the re-development were deliberately deceiving the public by describing it as two-tiered medicine. They also called on all political parties to stop using the re-development of the hospital as a political football.  

"If this is two-tiered medicine, then we have been practicing two-tiered medicine for several years - here at the Royal Ottawa Hospital, at many other hospitals across Canada, community health centers, and in the offices of private practitioners who typically lease space owned and operated by the private sector," said Paul Hindo, Chair of the Board of the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group (ROHCG). "Despite the fear mongering, which we all expect unfortunately in an election, this is a public hospital, and for anyone to say otherwise is simply not true." 

The Board of the ROHCG, which governs the Royal Ottawa Hospital and Brockville Psychiatric Hospital, approved the re-development model as a private-public partnership three years ago under binding principles, Mr. Hindo added. These principles, voted on and approved by the Board in February 2002, stipulate that the delivery of all health care will remain public, and that the private sector partner will be accountable to the CEO of the health care organization, who in turn is accountable to the Board. 

"The agreements we have entered into give the Board full authority to approve or change the service delivery of the private sector partner," said Mr. Hindo. "The efficiencies and financial savings we achieve by allowing the private sector to manage our non-clinical activity will be directed back to patient care.  All health care delivery remains in the public sector, where it rightly belongs - now and into the future." 

"It would be very sad if we were to deny patients the care they rightly deserve in this state-of-the-art new mental health facility," said Mr. Hindo. "This is what we have all strived for, to do the right thing for people who very often cannot advocate for themselves." 

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Contact: Kathy Hendrick, (613) 722-6521, ext. 6755  cell (613) 266-6755

Joanna Filion: (613) 722-6521, ext. 6767: