Ontario strikes again
Aug. 23rd, 2011 10:37 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
troubleWe 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 The website is woefully out of date.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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 02:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-08-23 02:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-08-23 02:57 pm (UTC)* hugs *
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 03:09 pm (UTC)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?
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 03:33 pm (UTC)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.
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 04:15 pm (UTC)...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.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 06:16 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 08:43 pm (UTC)What
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Date: 2011-08-23 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-23 10:37 pm (UTC)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...
no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 01:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 05:01 am (UTC)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?
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Date: 2011-08-24 05:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-08-24 08:00 am (UTC)