Health Card Delays A Serious Issue

Opinion

Justice delayed is justice denied.

Why is medical care delayed?

Canadians have long benefited from health care services funded by federal and provincial governments with taxpayer dollars. Canada's Medicare system is the envy of many foreign nationals who live in places where a medical emergency can lead to a catastrophic financial situation.

Manitoba Health's website boldly states that it takes four weeks to receive a health card. Below that statement in bold is the statement that the agency is "currently processing applications received on July 25, 2023."

Not four weeks. It is currently 23 weeks.

Call Manitoba Health and ask if you can see a doctor without health insurance. The answer is: you will be asked to pay for services, pay, keep receipts, and be reimbursed one way or another at some point in the future.

For Manitoba freshman Elizabeth Hendron, slipping on the ice highlighted the harshness and coldness of her health.

He added : "After he broke his arm in October, hospital officials asked him to sign legal documents stating that without a medical information number, he may have to pay about $3,000 in medical bills related to his injury." Twenty one.

"I no longer have health insurance anywhere in Canada, and I've been a Canadian citizen my whole life," Gendron told the Free Press . "No one should have to deal with this."

Many of us believe month after month that spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on health care up front is not an option.

Does this affect a significant number of Manitobans?

Maybe not. But there must be serious concerns.

Because what?

After the maximum three-month waiting period, a Canadian resident in the province must be considered covered under the Canada Health Act.

Article 10 of the law states: "The health insurance system in the governorate shall provide one hundred percent of the insured persons in the governorate with the right to receive insured health services provided by the plan under uniform conditions."

Article 11 of the law states: “The governorate health insurance plan... does not provide for a minimum period of stay in the governorate or a waiting period of more than three months before residents of the governorate are eligible or entitled to receive insured benefits. medical services".

The law does not allow for any extensions or exemptions because county health officials are too overwhelmed to handle the delay. The legislation does not say "shall" but "must".

If this responsibility is not addressed, the province of Manitoba is clearly threatening the federal government with defunding health care, just as the federal government can allow the provinces to pay for drugs in exchange for a service. .

Remember that the requirements that Manitoba's health care system does not meet are sections 10 and 11 - and not to be too specific, here again is the Canada Health Act.

"If the Governor in Council, upon consideration under section 14, finds that a county health insurance plan does not meet, or no longer meets, any of the standards set forth in sections 8 through 12 . . . the Governor in Council may by order reduce any cash contributions for that province in any financial year and on any default in such sum as the Governor in Council may think fit having regard to the seriousness of the default; or, if the Governor in Council directs that any pecuniary contributions to that Province shall be withheld in full for any financial year, as he shall think fit.

Delay (or even denial) of medical care is a serious problem.

The Manitoba government needs to start looking at things that way.

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