Health card delays a serious issue

Justice delayed is justice denied. Read this article for free: Already have an account? To continue reading, please subscribe: * Opinion Justice delayed is justice denied. So, what, pray tell, is health care delayed? Canadians have long been the beneficiaries of health care paid for by the federal and provincial governments with taxpayer dollars.

Canada’s medicare is the envy of many citizens outside this country who live in places where a catastrophic medical emergency can also be a catastrophic financial one. A Manitoba health card. Manitoba Health’s website boldly states that it takes four weeks to get a health card. Beneath that bold statement is a statement that the agency is “currently processing requests received July 25, 2023.” Not four weeks.

At this point, 23 weeks. Call Manitoba Health and ask about seeing a doctor without health coverage, and the response is that if you’re asked to pay for services, pay, keep your receipts, and you’ll be reimbursed somehow and sometime in the future. For new Manitoban Elizabeth Gendron, a slip on the ice brought the cold hard cost of health into sharp focus.

“After breaking her arm in October, hospital staff asked her to sign legal documents acknowledging that, without a public health information number, she could be asked to pay for roughly $3,000 in medical expenses relating to the injury,” the reported on Dec. 21. “I no longer have health coverage anywhere in Canada and I’ve been a Canadian citizen all my life,” Gendron told the .

“This is not something that anybody should have to deal with.” Enough of us live month to month that putting hundreds, or thousands, of dollars up front for medical care just isn’t an option. Does it affect a large number of Manitobans? Maybe not. But it definitely should raise serious concerns.

Why? After a maximum three month waiting period, a Canadian resident of a province is required to be treated as an insured person under the Canada Health Act. As the act states in Section 10, “the health care insurance plan of a province must entitle one hundred per cent of the insured persons of the province to the insured health services provided for by the plan on uniform terms and conditions.” In Section 11, the legislation states that “the health care insurance plan of a province… must not impose any minimum period of residence in the province, or waiting period, in excess of three months before residents of the province are eligible for or entitled to insured health services.” There are no extensions in the act, nor exclusions because provincial health staff are too overworked to address delays.

The legislation does not say “should”: it says “must.” Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. It is a clear responsibility, one that, if not addressed, leaves the province of Manitoba at the risk of having the federal government claw back health care funding — the same way the federal government can act in provinces that allow fee for service medicine.

Remember, the requirements the Manitoba health care system is failing to meet are Sections 10 and 11: not to put too fine a point on it, here’s the Canada Health Act again. “Where, on the referral of a matter under section 14, the Governor in Council is of the opinion that the health care insurance plan of a province does not or has ceased to satisfy any one of the criteria described in sections 8 to 12 … the Governor in Council may, by order, direct that any cash contribution to that province for a fiscal year be reduced, in respect of each default, by an amount that the Governor in Council considers to be appropriate, having regard to the gravity of the default; or where the Governor in Council considers it appropriate, direct that the whole of any cash contribution to that province for a fiscal year be withheld.” Health care delayed — or effectively denied — is serious business.

The government of Manitoba should start viewing it that way. Advertisement Advertisement.