Doug Ford\u2019s elimination of out-of-country OHIP coverage will make travel for Ontarians with kidney failure unaffordable, said NDP Health critic France G\u00e9linas who called for the reversal of the cut.<\/p>\n
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G\u00e9linas held a press conference at Queen\u2019s Park on Thursday with Allison Knudsen and John Landreville, who live with kidney failure and need dialysis.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDoug Ford will ground people like Allison and John in Ontario by making travel too expensive for them,\u201d said G\u00e9linas. \u201cFord is cutting their only available insurance coverage for dialysis treatments: OHIP.\u201d<\/p>\n
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G\u00e9linas said Allison and John can\u2019t get private travel insurance for dialysis treatments because insurance companies will not provide that coverage.\u00a0 Private insurers consider kidney failure to be a pre-existing condition, which prevents them from qualifying for medical coverage.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFord expects Allison and John to pay for their dialysis treatments out of pocket when they have to leave the country for whatever reason \u2014 work, school, a family visit, or a vacation,\u201d said G\u00e9linas.\u00a0 \u201cHe\u2019s taking away their reimbursements for dialysis that can require multiple treatments a week, every week.\u00a0 The current OHIP reimbursement of $210 per treatment means they don’t have to panic when a cross-border work trip or family reunion comes up.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ford\u2019s elimination of OHIP for out-of-country travellers takes effect on Oct. 1, 2019 and dialysis patients will have to pay 100 per cent out of pocket for their treatments outside Canada.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIt has been my dream to become a professor,\u201d said Landreville, a Ph.D. student enrolled at Wayne State University in Detroit. \u201cBut to succeed, I need to travel and, while I travel, it is imperative that I receive dialysis treatments.\u00a0 Without the ability to receive dialysis while I travel, my ability to finish my dissertation and move forward on the job market is gravely jeopardized.<\/p>\n
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\u201cDo not choose to make it harder for people already struggling to do their jobs, to see their families, to simply go about their lives.”<\/p>\n
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Knudsen says the Ford government\u2019s cut to OHIP reimbursements for dialysis patients will leave her paying the full cost of treatments.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI have family that live in the United States. When I visit, my dialysis treatment costs hundreds of dollars a session. My family has been helping me pay these huge medical bills, but sometimes I skip dialysis due to cost and I shorten trips,\u201d said Knudsen.<\/p>\n
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“The government’s reimbursements aren’t enough to pay my bills, but it’s the only coverage I have.\u00a0 People on hemodialysis like me cannot get private insurance coverage for our life-sustaining treatments.”<\/p>\n
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\u201cPeople like Allison and John deserve the same opportunities as all Ontarians,\u201d said G\u00e9linas. \u201cPeople who need to travel for work or for family have had the rug pulled out from under them. The NDP will continue to work for this cut to be reversed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Doug Ford\u2019s elimination of out-of-country OHIP coverage will make travel for Ontarians with kidney failure unaffordable, said NDP Health critic France G\u00e9linas who called for the reversal of the cut. G\u00e9linas held a press conference at Queen\u2019s Park on Thursday with Allison Knudsen and John Landreville, who live with kidney failure and need dialysis. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorials"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-27 02:57:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21434,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21433\/revisions\/21434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wawa-news.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}