September 30th, 2020

Statement regarding cost of COVID-19 tests done at the pharmacy

QUEEN’S PARK — Following revelations by 680 News that the Doug Ford government is paying $42 per test done at private pharmacies, NDP MPP France Gélinas released the following statement:

“The Doug Ford government denied requests from our public health care system for more funding and more staff, which would have enabled them to expand testing and be ready for the second wave everyone knew was coming. Ford said no. But when his insider buddies running massive pharmacy corporations asked for cash, Ford said yes.

We should make the most of the resources for testing and contract tracing – but Ford’s choice to pay extra per-test to pad the profit margins of pharmacy corporations makes no sense. We’ll pay more to get fewer tests done.

The NDP has been pushing for investments to expand our public health care system – including testing, lab capacity and contact tracing – all of which should have been done months ago. Sadly, Doug Ford is chasing the crisis of the second wave instead of acting early to stop it from getting out of control.”