Ontario Health Care System - Did You Know?

 

Canada's hospitals are not for rich foreign patients, evidently we have a loophole in our vaunted Ontario Health Care System

The issue snuck up doctors, nurses and therapists. Without consulting them, hospital executives began marketing expensive medical procedures to international patients. Unlike Ontarians, they paid full price. But they were whisked to the front of the line, while OHIP patients waited.

At first, the front-line health workers thought Canada was following its humanitarian tradition. But they soon realized these patients were not needy. They were being admitted in some cases solicited to generate revenue.

One of the first to sound the alarm was Pierre La-plante, a registered nurse in the orthopedic wing of Toronto Western Hospital. In spring of 2012, he and his colleagues were dislodged from their nurses lounge to accomodate an influx of Libyan patients.

The staff was told they were injured in the civil war in that country. The Libyan government had paid en masse to have their surgery done in Canada.I knew something needed to be done,a registered nurse Laplante said. He also knew he was taking a risk. This effected the status of Ontarioians who had waited months,sometime years,for orthopedic surgury.

Ontario's health minister seeing a creation of income for the hospitals .saw nothing wrong with the practice. Duh?

But they had no thought of backing down. Grinspun, as fierce a watchdog as medicare has, reached out to other health-care associations. Three of them Association of Ontario Health Centres, Canadian Doctors for Medicare Doctors for Medicare and the Association of Ontario Midwives.   

Determined to get a clear no. Grinspun and her associates are taking their case to the public. If we don't stop this practice, it will lead to the end of medicare, she told a news conference last week. Health care is a public good, not a business venture.

The number of hospitals that serve foreign patients is unclear. And the Health Ministry certainly isn't encouraging public debate.

The question is whether dollars trump principles. What Sunnybrook, Sick Kids, Mount Sinai and the University Health Network are doing compromises the spirit of medicare. It diverts the time and skills of public health professionals into a profit-making venture. And it sets a double standard: Foreign patients can buy their way to the front of the line but wealthy Ontarians can't.We have a gem here in Canada, the Registered Nurse Journal. I'm taken aback that it has been so violated for such short-term interest.