At a Friday, June 29 press conference marking the passage of the government’s immigration reform bill, Bill C-31, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) defended the cuts.
“[M]ost Canadians believe that we have no obligation to provide... publicly funded health insurance to bogus asylum claimants, whose claims have been rejected by our fair legal system, and that we don't have an obligation to provide supplemental benefits to asylum claimants which are not available to Canadians taxpayers,” Mr. Kenney told the media.
However, Mr. Kenney seemed to soften his tone on cuts to care for accepted refugees.
“We have limited health-care resources. We think they should be focused on bona fide refugees and Canadians citizens,” Mr. Kenney went on to say.
Under the IFHP, asylum seekers have received comprehensive health care since 1957, but on April 25 Mr. Kenney announced that supplementary health coverage for refugee claimants and officially “protected persons” would be limited to provide asylum seekers with care similar to that provided under provincial and territorial health programs. Cuts to the IFHP took effect on Saturday, June, 30, under an order in council.
Federally-funded eye and dental care for refugees has been eliminated and pharmaceutical coverage has been limited to illnesses that pose a public health risk, such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, while non-communicable illnesses such as diabetes and cancer are not covered. Federally-funded birth control for refugees has been discontinued, and maternal care has been limited for protected persons and refugee claimants. Refugees from “designated countries of origin”—countries classified as not producing refugees—receive no federally-funded maternal care under the changes.
Following the Canada Day long weekend, Louisa Taylor of the Ottawa Citizen reported that on Friday, June 29, CIC’s website was changed to exclude government assisted-refugees (GARs), a category of protected persons, from the IFHP supplemental care cuts. CIC initially denied that there were any last-minute changes to the IFHP reforms, but as of Tuesday morning a CIC website providing examples of the IFHP cuts was no longer available, and GARs were listed as beneficiaries of “Expanded Health-Care Coverage.”
On Tuesday afternoon a subsequent statement from Mr. Kenney’s office confirmed that language in the new IFHP policy had been changed to clarify the “original criteria.”
“Our intention was never to have this policy impact government-sponsored refugees who have been living in UN refugee camps, who arrive in Canada as permanent residents, but who do not initially qualify for provincial social support,” Alexis Pavlich, a spokesperson for Mr. Kenney, said in statement to The Hill Times. “Minister Kenney has said repeatedly that these people, who arrive in Canada as permanent residents and not as asylum claimants, will continue to receive comprehensive health-care coverage.”
Doctors have spoken out at recent public events by Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.), Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq (Nunavut), and Mr. Kenney. Mr. Oliver’s recent announcement on medical isotope research in Toronto was cut short when he was confronted by Dr. Chris Keefer, a family physician at Brampton Civic Hospital.
“I don’t believe this minister deserves my courtesy, or the courtesy of any doctor in this country,” Dr. Keefer said as the Natural Resources Minister made a premature departure from the stage.
Last week, CDRC representative Philip Berger, chief of family and community medicine at Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, called on Mr. Kenney to reverse the April 25 order in council.
“Rescinding the order would be a good Canada Day welcome to terrified refugees,” Dr. Berger told media on Parliament Hill on July 27, promising that members of the CDRC would continue to confront the government over the changes to refugee health benefits.
On Tuesday morning, the CDRC issued a statement that the “reversal indicates that the government acknowledges the need for access to medications, prosthetics, emergency dental and vision services and other essential health services for refugees.”
However, the CDRC press release went on to describe the exemption of GARs as “too little and too late,” and stated that other refugees would be hurt by the cuts.
GARs are part of a larger group of refugees under the “protected persons” classification. CIC plans to admit 7,500 GARs to Canada in 2012. Additional refugee groups classified as “protected persons” include privately-sponsored refugees, protected persons, and dependents abroad of protected persons in Canada. The federal government expects to admit 5,500; 8,500; and 4,500 individuals under each of these categories in 2012, respectively. Overall, CIC anticipates that 26,000 protected persons will be admitted to Canada this year.
Approximately 125,000 individuals classified as protected persons, refugee claimants (DCO), or refugee claimants (non-DCO) receive some form of health coverage under the IFHP. According to CIC, the cost of the IFHP has more than doubled from $40-million to $84.6-million annually over the last four years, and the changes are expected to save $100-million over the next five years as part of the government's deficit reduction plan.
Dr. Mark Tyndall, who is chief of infectious diseases at Ottawa Hospital and is a member of the CDRC, told The Hill Times that the ad hoc network of Canadian physicians would continue to oppose all cuts to IFHP. In addition to public protests, the CDRC will monitor refugee health outcomes under the changes through a Refugee Health Outcome Monitoring Evaluating System database.
“Our position remains that a refugee is a refugee, and all these benefits are necessary for them.” said Dr. Tyndall, adding that the health-care system was not an appropriate venue for tackling illegal immigration.
“We’re not going to break down different refugee categories. As far as health care goes, we feel that all refugees deserve health care and that it's really not our job to be the police of how [CIC] processes those people.”
Dr. Tyndall also credited his fellow physicians for successfully pressuring the government to rescind some of the changes to the IFHP reforms, and criticized CIC for denying the apparent last-minute change.
“[I]t’s clearly just deceiving the public,” Dr. Tyndall observed. “They’ve listened to the protest and agreed that their first decision was too harsh, and so they've backed off, but they’re saying it never it happened.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Chris Plecash
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