We expect our hospitals to be there when we need them.

Ontario ’s hospitals are already ranked amongst the most efficient in Canada . They’ve had to be.

Years of underfunding have created great stress in the system – stress that is about to reach the tipping point if a proposed funding freeze takes place for 2010/11.

The 30,000 health care professionals and support staff represented by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union are asking all Ontarians to visit www.avoidingzero.ca and use the on-line tools to compose a letter to their MPP. You choose the arguments. It can take as little time or as long as you wish to put your e-mail letter together. With a click of a mouse you can CC it to the Health Minister, the Premier, and the two opposition health critics.

Since 1990 there are 45 per cent fewer hospital beds available in Ontario despite a 25 per cent increase in population.

Port Colborne and Fort Erie recently lost their emergency departments, effectively leaving these towns without functioning hospitals. Other towns have fought to keep their ERs – for now.

Across the province hospitals are closing their labs to outpatient testing, sending patients to more expensive private labs, and in some cases, to face out-of-pocket charges for what used to be done for free.

In some regions hospital-provided physiotherapy is a memory, leaving those who emerge from hip and knee replacement surgery to seek private insurance to pay for their own outpatient rehab.

Hospitals are struggling to maintain programs for mental health and addictions, to acquire up-to-date diagnostic equipment, and to provide pediatric and obstetric care.

This is not the Medicare that we thought defined us as a nation.

Community-based services have not been adequately funded to replace these beds.

Home care has seen a reduction in its ability to serve patients too. A drop of almost 100,000 fewer patients was recorded between 2005/06 and 2007/08.

The Ontario government has already announced $5 billion in tax cuts for private corporations, and a whopping $11-15 billion in personal income tax cuts is in the works.

Ontario can afford to pay some deputy ministers more than double the recommended remuneration established in their own guidelines, then hide those salaries in hospital budgets.

Ontario has more than 30 major infrastructure projects in the works, most using a controversial model of financing and development that has proven to cost much more than the publicly-financed model.

Yet they cry poor when it comes to even modest increases to maintain the front line care your family needs.

Does this reflect your priorities?

People don’t stop getting ill because of a recession. The stresses of the current economic downturn have put more pressure on our hospitals, not less.

Hospitals did their best through H1N1. Imagine the next pandemic with thousands fewer front line care professionals and support staff.

By taking a little time now, you may just find your hospital is still there when you need it.