TIMMINS - The planned privatization of Ontario’s emergency air
ambulance service has cost the province its first Critical Care Flight
Paramedic.
Marc Bechard, a paramedic at the Ministry of Health’s Timmins air
base, tendered his resignation Tuesday. Click here to read the
resignation letter.
“To date, the Ministry of Health officials… have not provided
any clarification or logic for the privatization and downloading of
our services,” Bechard wrote in his letter of resignation (attached
to this release). “I am not willing to take part in a system which
is willing to sacrifice health care and safety in order to meet
political agendas at the cost of the people.”
Bechard’s union, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, had
predicted that the privatization, announced Sept. 13, could cost
Ontarians up to 300 years of top-level paramedical experience.
“Clearly, the exodus is beginning,” said OPSEU president Leah
Casselman. “We call on the Ministry of Health to cancel its
privatization plan now before we lose any more of these precious,
life-saving public employees.”
All 35 of the province’s full-time permanent flight paramedics
decided in September to accept a severance package and layoff notice
rather than be party to the privatization of their work, slated to
take effect Oct. 1, 2001. Bechard is the first to resign ahead of
time.
