Ontario to end program providing health care to uninsured residents
Ontario to end program providing health care to uninsured residents
The Ontario government will be ending a program that provides free-of-charge health-care services to uninsured people at the end of the month, something doctors say is extremely concerning for marginalized communities.
In March 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic was first ramping up, the ministry of health established temporary funding for doctors to provide health-care providers to treat those without coverage under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
The program allowed anyone to access “medically necessary physician and hospital services.”
In a memo sent to Ontario hospitals and health providers, and provided to CTV News Toronto, the government said this funding would end on March 31.
“Starting April 1, 2023, hospitals should return to pre-pandemic billing practices for uninsured patients,” the memo reads.
“As they did pre-pandemic, uninsured persons will continue to have access to some publicly funded health care services including primary care at one of Ontario’s 75 Community Health Centres, midwifery care, public health, and emergency care. Regardless of an individual’s health card status, Ontario’s public hospitals cannot refuse to provide services to a patient who is faced with a life-threatening medical emergency.”
In a statement, the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) expressed concern about this decision, saying it will be “detrimental to the livelihood of marginalized Ontarians who often face the greatest barriers in our society.”
“Instead, the government will rely on the goodwill of physicians who often exercise a moral obligation to care for uninsured persons without being compensated,” the OMA, which represents the political, clinical, and economic interests of Ontario physicians, said.
An uninsured person is someone who lacks private or provincial health insurance and most often impacts those without residency status, people waiting for permanent residency, foreign workers between contracts, and international students not covered by their universities or colleges.
Challenges also exist for those who experience homelessness and who may not have access to a health card.
The OMA wants the Ministry of Health to extend the program temporarily until a long-term solution can be developed.
The ministry, for its part, says the funding was put in place as a temporary measure to ensure people had access to medical services when it was difficult to leave the province during travel restrictions.
“With lower rates of COVID-19 and the ending of public health restrictions, the province is winding down its pandemic response measures to focus resources on delivering services Ontarians need the most,” it said in a statement to CTV News Toronto.
Doctors have expressed their apprehension over the changes being made so suddenly, especially considering no further action has been taken to reduce other barriers to health care.
Dr. Michael Warner, an ICU doctor at Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital, told CTV News Toronto that suddenly ending a program that solved a real equity issue is “cruel.”
“We're not talking about people who can no longer go to Buffalo to get an MRI. We're talking about people who don't have a home,” he said “It was a very good policy that rectified a major inequity that existed before March 25, 2020.”
MDs have learned via @OntariosDoctors that uninsured patients lose coverage for physician & hospital services on March 31.
Cancelling this program harms the most marginalized including those uninsured solely due to mental health challenges, addiction, and/or no fixed address.
In order to get a health card in Ontario, an individual needs to physically show up at a Service Ontario centre, provide three forms of identification, and have a home address. The forms, Warner added, are also only in English and French.
“What it means is that if you don't have a health card, you're much less likely to get preventive and primary care because you're not going have an ongoing relationship with a primary care practitioner,” he said.
“When you do get sick, it's going to be a bigger emergency that's going to cost the system more. And those on the margins are the ones who are going to be harmed the most in addition to the physicians who treat those marginalized groups, they're just going to be working for free, and that's not fair either.”
‘MEAN-SPIRITED’
While uninsured individuals are able to seek care at community clinics and hospitals without a health card, long-time street nurse Cathy Crowe says she can’t think of any benefit to ending the program.
“There's literally no logic in the decision apart from it means that money that was going to this will go elsewhere,” she said, adding that this will put more pressures on community health centres and hospitals that will be tasked with providing care. “It's mean-spirited. If the premier and his people think that it's easy to get into a community health center, it's not. There's waiting list to become patients there as well. And emergency rooms, my god the doctors in Toronto ERs anyway, are swamped.”
“The last thing they need is people coming in for an ear infection … they don't need people coming in for ‘I'm out of my medication, can you help me.’”
Crowe added that any barriers to access would especially prevent unhoused individuals from seeking care, regardless of the location.
When the funding became available in 2020, it was a game changer,” Dr. Andrew Boozary with the University Health Network, told CTV News Toronto.
There are about half a million people in Ontario who do not have insurance, Boozary noted.
“Removing that stigma and barrier for people to access care was a crucial part in what we were trying to do to improve health in marginalized communities,” he said.
“I think the lack of engagement or consultation to have or pull back a program like this will have a real ripple effect through people who will have now much more uncertainty about where or when they can bank on goodwill, which seems to be indicating the memo, as opposed to the kind of policies we need to ensure that people can stay and be healthy.”
Boozary said the pandemic also shed light on how people’s socioeconomic conditions impacted not just their health but the care they received.
“To not learn and build policy on these learnings that came at a very high cost of human life and more disease … That's the really challenging part to reconcile right now,” he said.
“If the policy messaging is correct, this does real damage to our notions of universality.”
The news also comes as a deal with Ontario optometrists alters coverage for eye exams under OHIP, reducing the number of exams that are covered for seniors to once every 18 months. Seniors will also no longer receive unlimited minor follow-up assessments and people with cataracts will only be covered if they have “clinically significant decreased vision” or if a surgical referral is made.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's efforts to assure Canadians that his government is adequately addressing the threat of foreign interference took a hit on Wednesday, when the majority of MPs in the House of Commons voted for special rapporteur David Johnston to 'step aside.'
Seventeen people – most of whom are young students – were hospitalized after a falling from a height during a field trip at Winnipeg's Fort Gibraltar. However, many of the children are now being discharged and sent home, according to an update from the hospital.
Although bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in Canada, experts say there’s a significant lack of awareness surrounding whom it affects the most — statistically, men — and that the most common risk factor is smoking.
Canada will soon require health warnings to be printed directly on individual cigarettes, making it the first country to implement this kind of measure aimed at reducing tobacco usage.
More than three years after COVID was declared a global pandemic, a new study is looking at how the international health crisis has changed the lifestyle habits of Canadians.
A year after arguing Nigeria's ruling party is responsible for terrorist acts, the Trudeau government has sent a cabinet minister to celebrate the swearing-in of its new president.
The Canadian economy grew faster than expected in the first three months of the year and likely expanded again in April, fuelling speculation that the Bank of Canada will raise interest rates again.
Statistics Canada says fewer fresh fruits and vegetables were available to Canadians in 2022, due to factors such as ongoing supply chain issues, labour shortages and price increases.
Last year, Quebec’s Bill 96 became law, which brought sweeping changes to the Charter of the French language. Sections of the new law will come into effect on June 1, the one-year anniversary of the bill receiving royal assent.
Some communities in Quebec are expected to get record-high temperatures and Environment Canada has issued several weather warnings and watches for heat. Dr. Christopher Labos spoke to CTV News anchor Mutsumi Takahashi about heat and sunstroke and tips for preventing serious consequences in the sun.
When asked to clarify his position on the involvement of private enterprise in the construction of dams, Premier François Legault said on Wednesday that his government 'has nothing against the private sector.' He was responding to Quebec Solidaire (QS)'s demand for transparency, after Energy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon had expressed an openness to the construction of hydroelectric facilities by private enterprise.
A 72-year-old from Kitchener has been charged with careless driving after a vehicle careened off Highland Road West and smashed through the backyards of three homes on Ralgreen Crescent in Kitchener Tuesday afternoon.
Huntsville OPP has charged a third girl in connection to an alleged assault captured on video at a local high school and shared on social media earlier this month.
Forest fires in northern Ontario are on the rise, with the largest in the region shutting down a critical highway for the people of Hornepayne for a bit and bringing the community to the brink of evacuation.
A Toronto woman says she was shamed for the size of her order at a sushi restaurant north of the city in a scathing review posted to social media that’s been viewed more than 1.4 million times.
Ontario Provincial Police have arrested a 21-year-old man from Ottawa in connection with the shooting deaths of two teens from Mississauga in Pembroke, Ont. A third teenager, also from Mississauga, was injured.
A heat warning is in effect for Ottawa. Environment Canada's forecast calls for sunny and hot weather to continue for the final day of May and the start of June.
Canadian Heritage unveiled the programming for July 1 celebrations, inviting Canadians to come to the capital region to "join the biggest party in the country!"
Windsor police say they are deploying additional officers to the downtown core over the next three days to promote community safety and reduce incidents of crime.
A sentencing hearing got underway for the 71-year-old Georgian Bay man convicted of driving impaired and causing a collision on Highway 12 in 2020 that claimed the life of a 77-year-old Midland man.
Police charged one man following a serious collision involving a dump truck and car in Barrie on Tuesday afternoon that sent both drivers to the hospital.
Huntsville OPP has charged a third girl in connection to an alleged assault captured on video at a local high school and shared on social media earlier this month.
Seventeen people – most of whom are young students – were hospitalized after a falling from a height during a field trip at Winnipeg's Fort Gibraltar. However, many of the children are now being discharged and sent home, according to an update from the hospital.
Seventeen people – most of whom are young students – were hospitalized after a falling from a height during a field trip at Winnipeg's Fort Gibraltar. However, many of the children are now being discharged and sent home, according to an update from the hospital.
After the remains of Madison Scott were identified this week, exactly 12 years after the B.C. woman went missing, her family says they’re still looking for answers and closure.
A man who slammed an Edmonton mother to the ground and strangled her outside of a downtown daycare in 2021 has had his nine-year prison sentence reduced to four years.
