Ontario strikes again

[trouble]

We have started the process of attempting to get Don health care.

Logically, this should be simple: Canadian moves from one province to another, Canadian receives health care using Canadian's health care card from previous province until residency requirements are met for the new province's health care to kick in.

In practice, things are very different. Don's spent two days on the phone with various people about getting a doctor in the city. Ha ha, ha ha ha.

First call was to the HealthCareConnect people to find a GP that was taking patients. They will not help him because in order to use HealthCareConnect one needs to have a valid Ontario Health Care Card. Don cannot get a valid Ontario Health Care Card until October. We think. It might be longer.

HealthCareConnect refers Don to a website. The website is woefully out of date. He finally finds a GP that is taking patients and that doctor's office says "Well, awesome, but you have to register with HealthCareConnect before we can take you."

So, Don calls back HealthCareConnect and someone there feels sorry for him and kicks him up a level. That person reveals that she can give him phone numbers for some "community care centers" that are required to take him even if he doesn't have an Ontario health care card, but they're basically like walk-in clinics. There is no regular GP that you'll see (necessary for someone like Don who has a wide variety of health issues, is using a wheelchair full time, and needs careful prescription management) and they don't prescribe the medications he uses to manage pain.

Okay then. I call up our MPP's office. At first I am told that, no no, you can immediately just go into a Service Ontario office and get your health care sorted. The three month waiting period is only for newcomers to Canada. This is fascinating to me as it contradicts absolutely everything else I have ever read and would make Ontario unique amongst Canadian provinces. I ask him to confirm and he spends some time looking at websites and declares that things are "a bit unclear." He tells me that he'll call his contact at the Ministry of Health and get back to me.

So, here we are. Don has enough medication to cover him for a month. With some of his medication, if he can't get a new scrip, he will die. (Slowly, granted, so probably something could be sorted before he slipped into a coma, but who the fuck knows.) Now it's no longer a matter of "medication is expensive", it's a matter of "can we even get it?"

But gosh, if only cripples were more positive thinkers, everything would be easier.

Oh, and by the way: If Don were moving into a long-term care center, then he'd automatically get an Ontario health care card.

Comments

[laughingrat]

Jaw-dropping. Holy hell. D:

[trouble]

Canadians have a Charter of Rights right to move from one province to another, but realistically it's only good for people who don't need immediate access to government services.

[meloukhia]

Independence? What's that? Why on earth would cripples want to live out in society where anyone could see them?

[trouble]

Maybe this is why no one on the bus knows how to deal with those pesky wheelchair users. *sigh*

[jesse_the_k]

Oh dear.

* hugs *

[facetofcathy]

Bloody Hell.

So HealthCareConnect is the cloak the GPs are using to avoid any responsibility for dealing with the issue, charming.

Hey, are you exempt from the PST portion of the HST for three months too?

[trouble]

Everyone knows that students and cripples aren't tax payers!

[theleaveswant]

Last I checked, Bridgepoint Family Health Clinic doctors were still accepting new patients. My new GP (first I've had since I moved to this province three years ago) is there and she seems pretty great. I don't know what they'll expect or demand with regard to health cards, though.

As for how to get a health card, I'm trying to remember what happened when I applied . . . I had lived here for a year or maybe two before I decided that I was not a student living out of province anymore but a permanent Ontario resident, so I had already met whatever residency requirements, but the guy at the Service Ontario centre backdated my application so I could get the card sooner (so there wouldn't be a gap between my Manitoba and Ontario coverage, I think?) but it still took a few months for the physical card to arrive. I don't imagine that helps much, though.

[chaosinabox]

When I came home to Alberta from my year in Japan, I was told it would take living in the province for a full year before I'd be able to get my healthcare card back...

...unless I was willing to whip out my chequebook and pay a full year's worth of healthcare premiums up front.

Needless to say, a quick loan from Mom & Dad later, and I was back on Alberta Health Care.

Alberta: slowly paving the way for private health care since 1997.

[zingerella]

I think when R. moved here last winter, in terms of getting a doctor, he just called my G.P., who takes new patients who are family and friends of current patients. If you want, Trouble, I'll give you her information. There was no messing about with HealthCareConnect or any such nonsense. However, she's kind of oversubscribed, so she may not be taking any new patients who are not actually related to me.

Can Don use his NS health coverage while he waits, or does that work only for emergency health care?

[merrily]

Hi Anna,

I called my mum to get the lowdown on your situation -- my dad's a GP, and my mum runs his office. (Sadly, he's not in Toronto, or I'd refer you to him.) She says that you have to wait 3 months to get OHIP, but that Ontario and Nova Scotia have a reciprocal billing arrangement. (Your MPP was wrong. Sorry.)

I asked if you have to pay upfront if you're still in the 3 month waiting period, and she says that most offices will just bill the province.

She passed on a Service Ontario # for you: 1-866-532-3161, and also says that most walk-in clinics will take you for the 3 months that you're waiting. Don can get his scrips that way.

Finding a family doctor here is hard as fuck, it's true. The Globe & Mail published an article about it yesterday that might be helpful for you. I don't know if mine is taking new patients, but I'll certainly ask for you.

[susanreads]

Aargh.

What meloukhia said: they don't want Don to be living independently.

[annaham]

There is not enough D-: in the world. Fucking hell, Anna. <3

[selenay]

That is so entirely insane. Ugh.

NS must be very unusual because they gave me a Health Card a few days after I arrived.

Remind me never to move provinces if it's this complicated. Being without my immuno-suppressants (that require careful management by a specialist and keep me alive) for any length of time would be very, very bad *sigh*

We really need some kind of national, rather than provincial, arrangement for this stuff to prevent exactly this kind of thing happening.

And a national prescription plan and...

[lilacsigil]

Ugh, I'm so glad my country (which has otherwise very similar divisions between the states as Canada has between provinces) has got this organised on a national level. Unless you're a dialysis patient in Central Australia (indigenous Australians have high levels of kidney disease), in which case it's 2500km round trips for you!

[sami]

What the fuck?

Isn't Canada a *COUNTRY*? How can you move from one part of a country to a different part of the same country and not have *public health cover* follow you?

[vass]

This is simply terrifying.

[kaz]

That is ridiculous and so goddamn horrible. What, you're not allowed to move if you can't go *three damn months* without your meds?

[zingerella]

Because health care is provincially controlled. The federal government allocates each province some money for health care, the provinces kick in some more, and health services are administered at the provincial level. There's a certain basic standard that is relatively common across the country (though the farther you are from a major urban centre, the more spotty access becomes), but specific services may or may not be covered from province to province, and the province pays each person's health care bills. So when I go to the doctor's in Ontario, where I have health care, my clinic bills OHIP, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, for my doctor's appointment. If I get sick in Nova Scotia and go to a hospital there, the hospital bills the Nova Scotia government, and the NS government bills OHIP.

When people move from province to province, there's a waiting period before they are eligible for coverage in the new province; however, they generally continue to be covered under reciprocal agreements with their home provinces. There may, however, be weirdness if they've been receiving treatments in one province that aren't covered in another.

This is further complicated by the fact that for most people, public health insurance doesn't cover prescription meds. (I think this is really sadistic: they'll tell you what drugs you need but if you can't afford 'em, you're SOL.) Certain groups do get some of their drugs covered, with a $2 co-payment: seniors, people on social assistance, and I think people receiving disability benefits, but never having been in these groups, I don't know how that works.

[trouble]

If your cost of medications equals more than (I think) 4% of your income, you get covered under Ontario's drug plan. The details are hazy to me, because of course one must wait until three (I think) months after getting on OHIP before one qualifies.

[zingerella]

Ah! That is the bit I was missing. Thank you!