Holding their breaths
Holding their breaths
guelph mercury
Rule change means baby from overseas must wait months for OHIP coverage
March 16, 2009
Mercury staff
GUELPH
They may be sleep-deprived and over-the-moon in love with their new baby Thao, but Donna Kelly and Brad Maybee are frustrated that the province's response to recent immigration policy changes mean their adopted daughter can't immediately get health coverage.
The Guelph couple has been learning other parents in the province are also being denied OHIP numbers for their internationally adopted children.
Ontario's Ministry of Health has made assurances that the problem is due to a bureaucratic oversight that will be rectified, but Kelly and Maybee are infuriated.
"If I had given birth to Thao, she would get immediate medical coverage," Kelly said.
"This smacks of discrimination."
There are already stringent rules for couples seeking to adopt internationally and the process is expensive, so Kelly and Maybee were thorough when filing paperwork.
Before they left for Vietnam in December 2008, they checked with OHIP to make sure Thao would be covered by provincial health insurance when she arrived at her new home in Guelph.
They paid for independent health coverage for her through Blue Cross for her time in Vietnam, then cancelled the policy once they'd returned to Ontario.
The changes to Canada's citizenship and immigration policies were intended to streamline the adoption and citizenship process. Under the new framework Thao, who will be nine months old on Friday, was declared a Canadian citizen as soon as the adoption process was complete in Vietnam.
Previous regulations meant parents had to apply for Canadian citizenship for their adopted children once they returned to Canada. In the meantime though, the child would have medical coverage through his or her permanent resident visa.
The new family returned to Guelph in January and Maybee headed to the OHIP office in Kitchener early in February to get Thao's OHIP number.
He was told that there's now a three-month waiting period for OHIP cards for international adoptees, since they are now considered citizens but not yet permanent residents.
Until the waiting period is over, Maybee was told, Thao's medical bills would have to paid out of pocket.
"We are really lucky that Thao is in good health right now," Kelly said, although Thao did need X-rays, blood work, vaccinations and a doctor's checkup to make sure she didn't have any health conditions that needed attention.
Thao got a clean bill of health; her parents got the bill.
Many internationally adopted children are raised in institutions until they are adopted, Kelly said, and are at high risk of carrying infections like TB, hepatitis, scabies or respiratory infections.
"That's why this thing with the government is so terrible. These children need medical care right away. Three months can be way too long," Kelly said.
Letters, emails and telephone discussions have been exchanged between Health Minister David Caplan's office and the Kelly/ Maybee household.
The couple has been told variously that: a directive was sent to OHIP offices on Jan. 27 this year enforcing a three-month waiting period for internationally adopted children; some OHIP offices have given OHIP numbers to new adoptees without the three-month wait; adoption practitioners and agencies were blindsided by this information; the Ministry of Children and Youth Services, which oversees all adoptions, also did not know about the waiting period.
They have consulted a lawyer who can't find anything in the language of the new immigration and citizenship policy or Canada's Health Insurance Act to justify the new position OHIP is taking. They have filed an appeal.
And they have started to spread the word, through online chat groups, to other parents hoping to adopt out-of-country.
Similar stories are flooding their inbox.
Danielle Norris, spokesperson for the federal Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, said it was news to her that changes made under Bill C-14 were affecting health coverage for adopted children.
That was never the intention of the amendment, she said. She has not heard of similar ramifications in any other provinces. The law, which came into affect Dec. 23, 2007, was supposed to simplify the process, she said.
"Before, parents would pick up their child and apply for citizenship here. Now, the child is considered a Canadian citizen overseas.
"Canadian families open their hearts to adopt. We want to help with that," Norris said. "We don't want these children treated any differently than Canadian-born children."
"It was never a policy move," said Steve Erwin, spokesperson for Caplan's office. "It was never the intention of the federal or provincial government to impose a three-month waiting period. We only recently started hearing from parents. That's when we realized there's a loophole."
Erwin said the ministry expects to rectify the problem by April 1. He's asking affected families to contact the health ministry and to hang on to any medical bills they incur in the meantime.
Guelph MPP Liz Sandals suspects it's a case of a Ministry of Health bureaucrat making a poor interpretation of the federal citizenship changes.
"It sounds like bureaucrats run amok," she said. "The Minister's office is trying to solve this, they expect within a few weeks.
"It's our understanding these families will be reimbursed."
Given all that, Maybee doesn't understand why the health ministry can't send another memo to OHIP offices telling them to issue OHIP numbers for international adoptees -- or at least to inform new parents that the interruption is temporary.
"They picked the wrong group to mess with," he said. "We may be small, but we're passionate, we're active and we have a lot on the line.
"If for some reason this isn't cleared up by April 1, we'll go ahead with the appeal."