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0 Toronto woman Rose Celeste says she spent years avoiding a visit to the doctor.
As an undocumented migrant worker, she feared something as simple as a checkup could lead to her deportation back to the Philippines.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit three years ago, that changed. The province directed hospitals to temporarily provide medically necessary care to patients without coverage while it reimbursed them for the expense — something that led Celeste, 61, to discover and then treat her thyroid cancer.
Without this program, she estimates she’d be thousands of dollars in the red trying to pay for health care herself — or worse, dead.
“For migrant workers like me, this is very important and this is very crucial,” said Celeste, an active member of the migrant workers’ movement in Canada.
“My God, you can just imagine how happy I am.”
And she’s not alone. A report released Thursday by the advocacy group Health Network for Uninsured Clients found that this program improved health outcomes and reduced financial hardship for Ontario residents without insurance. It’s why the network is advocating for this program to be made permanent.
Despite this, the province confirmed it’s winding it down. In an email statement to CBC Toronto Saturday, the Ministry of Health said program funding will cease at the end of this month, citing similar reasons in line with its recent move to end its paid sick days program.
“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,” reads the ministry’s email.
“As was the case prior to the pandemic, from April 1, those who are not eligible for the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) and do not have any other form of health insurance coverage are encouraged to speak to the treating hospital and/or physician to develop plans for future care.”
Program wins in danger of backsliding
The network surveyed 18 health-care practitioners who directly work with uninsured clients. While the report notes implementation was imperfect throughout the province due to lack of awareness of the program, respondents said the directive has largely improved health outcomes and reduced financial hardship, stress and delays to accessing care.
Dr. Edward Xie, an emergency physician in Toronto, was one of the professionals polled. Before the program came into place, he recalls watching patients forced to choose between paying for health care they need and bills they have to pay, and sometimes leaving the hospital untreated because of it.
To extend free health care to uninsured Ontarians and then take it away is something Xie calls “terrible” and “devastating.”
“For the last three years, we’ve actually had a universal health-care system in Ontario, where if you’re living or working or studying here, you can actually just walk in and get essential health care,” said Xie.
The report says this program helped people with study or work permits, precarious housing and mental health issues, and those like Celeste without an authorized immigration status. But they’re hard to track — the most recent research in 2016 estimated there were about 500,000 people living in Ontario without insurance.
And until something can be done long-term to help this group of people, the Ontario Medical Association says it’s asking the ministry to extend the program.
“The OMA has expressed concerns to the ministry, as this decision will be detrimental to the livelihood of marginalized Ontarians who often face the greatest barriers in our society,” the association said in an email to CBC Toronto.
“The government will rely on the goodwill of physicians who often exercise a moral obligation to care for uninsured persons without being compensated.”
Without this program, Xie says hospitals will be put back into a “difficult position” that could leave patients without access to care. This will make them vulnerable to worse health outcomes that will cost them and the system more down the line, he says.
“A permanent program of health-care coverage for uninsured people living in Ontario, you know, it happens to be both the smart thing to do and the right thing to do,” said Xie.
