Roman Orlov came to Canada from Ukraine last fall with dreams of studying psychology. But instead, the 18-year-old Richmond Hill resident has spent most of the past year battling cancer — and Ontario’s health insurance bureaucracy.
As the Star’s Nicholas Keung reported last week, Orlov and his mother Tetiana Orlova arrived last October to join Tetiana’s new husband, Pavel Kozakevich, a Canadian citizen.
His case underlines the need for two changes to the province’s rules around who is eligible for medical coverage, and when.
Permanent residents of Canada (like Orlov) shouldn’t have to wait three months until they are covered. Delaying treatment for them only means we’ll pay more down the road.
And, in the meantime, the health care bureaucracy should have more power to grant exemptions from the three-month rule. Right now, it has almost none.
Orlov’s ordeal cries out for compassion. A month after he arrived in Canada, he fell ill with cancer. By last spring, after doctors had removed a kidney, a rare cancer called Ewing’s sarcoma had spread throughout his abdomen.
Doctors waived their fees and the community raised money to help, but without OHIP coverage the family struggled to pay the mounting medical costs of chemotherapy and other treatment. So medical care was kept to a minimum.
Kozakevich submitted permanent residency applications for his wife and stepson in February and applied for OHIP as soon as they passed the first stage of their application on June 13.
Although they knew Orlov had to wait three months — until Sept. 13 — to get health insurance coverage, the family decided to ask OHIP and then the Health Services Appeal and Review Board to reduce or waive the waiting time.
But their request was rejected by OHIP and the review board, as both say the law gives them no power to make exemptions on the basis of compassion or financial hardship. Neither Health Minister Christine Elliott nor Premier Doug Ford has that authority either, according to a health ministry spokesperson.
It’s estimated that as many as 500,000 people in Ontario are without OHIP coverage due to their immigration status.
And it makes sense for most newcomers to Ontario, or Canadians returning after an extended absence, to wait three months before they can access publicly funded medical care.
It’s also reasonable for people moving to Ontario from other parts of Canada to be covered, but their home provinces are billed until they have been here for three months.
But Orlov’s case raises two problems with this long-standing policy.
As the Wellesley Institute and others have argued, the 80,000 new permanent residents who arrive in Ontario annually — mostly economic and sponsored family immigrants — are a relatively small, committed and rigorously tested group of newcomers who tend to be in good health. Why make them wait?
Delaying access to public health care for the few who get sick makes little sense since we all pay the higher cost of addressing untreated illness once the three-month waiting period is over.
The second issue is with Ontario’s health care system. If nobody has the power to act, it seems heartless — as well as financially wasteful — for OHIP and the Health Services Appeal and Review Board to even hear cases like Orlov’s.
The government should address both problems.
Since there are relatively few new permanent residents, and their demand on the medical system is likely to be modest due to their general good health, it makes sense to exempt this group from the three-month OHIP waiting period. It costs us more in the end to delay treatment for the few who may get sick.
And rather than put others through the OHIP review board rigamarole with no hope of success, the government should give the health care bureaucracy power to make exceptions.
That would be in keeping with this government’s stated focus on “respecting taxpayers” and “compassion” for vulnerable Ontarians.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/09/04/ontario-should-lift-health-care-wait-period-for-new-permanent-residents.html
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