Protecting Public Healthcare in Waterloo Region
Public healthcare in Ontario is at a crossroads. As our hospitals, long-term care homes, and community health services face growing pressures, we’re here to ensure healthcare remains accessible, accountable, and there when you need it.
Your Voice for Local Healthcare
The Waterloo Region Health Coalition is a non-partisan, volunteer-led group of residents, healthcare professionals, and families across Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge. We provide the research and local coordination necessary to protect our public services from the threat of privatization.
We serve as a community resource to help you navigate how provincial policy changes affect your local care. Our goal is to ensure that healthcare delivery stays in public hands, based on patient need rather than private profit.
Healthcare Primer
Understanding Your Right to Public Healthcare
Healthcare in Canada was built on a simple promise: everyone gets care based on need, not ability to pay. But that foundation is shifting. Learn what’s at stake, how our system works, and why protecting public healthcare matters for you and your family.
Long Term Care
Ensuring Dignity for Our Seniors
Long-term care in Ontario is in crisis. Understaffing, inadequate funding, and the expansion of for-profit care are compromising the safety and dignity of our most vulnerable residents. Discover what’s happening in Waterloo Region and how we can demand better for our loved ones.
Home Care
Keeping Care in Our Communities
More seniors want to age at home, but home care services are being stretched thin and privatized. When care is driven by profit instead of patient need, our neighbors suffer. Find out how home care is changing and what it means for Waterloo Region families.
Pharmacare
Making Medications Accessible to All
Millions of Canadians can’t afford essential medications. A universal pharmacare program could fix that by ensuring everyone has access to the medicines they need, regardless of income or insurance. Learn how national pharmacare could close coverage gaps and save billions.
Privatization
When Profit Comes Before Patients
Across Ontario, pieces of our public healthcare system are being handed over to private, for-profit companies. From surgical clinics to diagnostic labs, this shift prioritizes shareholder returns over patient care. Understand what privatization really means and why it threatens equal access to healthcare.
Current Focus
What We’re Working On Now
Our coalition responds to emerging threats and opportunities as they arise. From Bill 60 to hospital restructuring to advocacy campaigns, this is where you’ll find our most urgent work and how you can help make a difference right now in Waterloo Region.
Latest News & Updates
Tracking the local impact of provincial policy changes and healthcare trends in our community.
No place for patients: Ontario’s hallway health care numbers hit unprecedented highs
New internal government data shows Ontario’s hallway health care problem is vastly outpacing population growth Aidan Chamandy The Trillium Oct. 28, 2026 On Thursday, Feb. 19, Michael Richardson returned…
Town Halls Across Ontario: Now is our moment, either we fight for it or we lose public health care
Natalie Mehra Ontario Health Coalition October 27, 2026 What’s happening For the first time since the introduction of Public Medicare in Canada, a privatization-pushing provincial government has attacked…
‘These are very challenging decisions’: Health minister defends out-of-country drug funding rules as cancer patients face limited options
Sylvia Jones says new rules simply codify existing policy; patients say they’ve fundamentally altered who qualifies for life-saving treatments abroad Tina Yazdani The Trillium Oct. 26, 2026 As cancer patients…
Ontario’s private health care gamble is failing
Wait times rise as Ontario pours billions into private care. While Ontario’s public hospitals are being told that the cupboard is bare, the provincial government is able to find significant…
‘Just go die already’: Ontario cancer patient latest to be denied provincial drug funding
The Ontario government’s new funding policy means she could die after she runs out of money to pay for her treatment. Jon Woodward Published: October 11, 2026 CTV News…
Ontario Health Ministry spent $13.3M on advertising last year
Newly released records bring advertising spending identified by The Trillium to more than $90M across five ministries Tina Yazdani and Charlie Pinkerton Oct 8, 2026 4:19 PM The…
Help Us Keep Healthcare Public
Whether you want to stay informed or join a local task team, your involvement helps protect public healthcare for everyone in our community.