Canadas health care system Archives

Getting away with pharmacy fraud is ‘no problem’ in Ontario

February 27, 2019

A Toronto Star/Global News investigation reveals that few pharmacists are ever caught for fraudulent overbilling, despite evidence that it’s a persistent problem, and that chances of a criminal conviction are slight in the rare cases that are pursued.

“I’m the cleaner,” says the man wearing a ball cap and sunglasses to mask his identity.

“I help them to clean up the books … fix the papers,” he says. “Make it look nice, like a proper pharmacy.”

We’ll call the cleaner “Ivan.” He agreed to share details of the murky world of pharmacy fraud — a scam that costs the public millions of dollars every year, but no one knows exactly how much.

Ivan is the man pharmacists call when they have been flagged for overbilling the Ontario Drug Benefit Program (ODB), sometimes for hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. He comes in and creates a paper trail to hide the fraud and get pharmacists off.

Mother demands answers after son, 8, put in restraints and injected on first day of school

September 28, 2017

A Toronto-area mother is searching for answers after she says her son was taken to a hospital alone in the back of a police car, placed in restraints and injected with a sedative because he was acting out on the first day of school.

Debbie Kiroff says her eight-year-old, who loves cooking, Lego and swimming, has behavioural issues and a severe learning disability. So when the principal at Holland Landing Public School phoned her on Sept. 5 to say his behaviour was “escalating,” it didn’t come as a shock.

Shackling and sedating Ontario student ‘disgusting and unacceptable,’ Opposition leader says

September 28, 2017

In a heated exchange in the Ontario Legislature Thursday, the Opposition leader took the Liberal government to task over the treatment of a Toronto-area boy who was restrained and sedated on his first day of school.

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown said the CBC Toronto story “left a knot in the pit of [his] stomach,” and the actions of the school and hospital are “disgusting and unacceptable.”

Canadian schools stock up on naloxone kits in wake of growing opioid crisis

September 5, 2017

As students across Canada head back to school, universities are stocking up on naloxone kits in the wake of the opioid crisis.

Opioid-related deaths claimed the lives of nearly 2,500 people in Canada in 2016, and hundreds more this year. The crisis is growing so rapidly that Health Canada recently put out a warning about the drug for students during orientation week.

Privacy commissioner investigating after man finds information of 60 patients on back of prescription

August 16, 2017

A Toronto man is raising concerns about the privacy of patients after he discovered what he believes are the names, birth dates and health card numbers of 60 people on the back of a prescription printed for his wife by her family doctor.

Last month, Eddie Soltani’s wife had an appointment with Dr. Michael Lai in downtown Toronto.

Her husband picked her up and they were about to fill the prescription when Soltani says he discovered a list on the other side containing what he believes is personal information of Lai’s patients.

Inquest to examine death at Saskatoon youth custody facility

June 5, 2017

An inquest into the death of a youth in custody will be held later this month in Saskatoon.

Timothy Unger was a resident at Kilburn Hall Youth Centre, a secure custody youth facility in Saskatoon, when he died on July 30, 2015. In the early morning hours he was taken to Royal University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Grey matters: Mistreatment and abuse of patients in long-term care homes is anything but rare

May 16, 2017

It was over 3 decades ago, but I still remember the elegant surroundings I saw when I stepped out of the car: the freshly clipped lawn, the stone façade, the oak door. It was the first day of an audit at a long-term-care facility. I’d come equipped with my briefcase, working papers and calculator. But nothing prepared me for what I’d find inside.

When I opened the door, I was greeted by the smell of bleach, of institutional food, of despair.

To reach the accountant’s office, I walked past people sitting in wheelchairs who reached out, trying to catch my attention. I walked past people in rooms, calling out from their beds. And I walked past a nursing station where staff talked and laughed, seemingly oblivious to the misery around them.

Every day I walked down that hall; every night I went home and wept. It may be 30 years later, but the problems remain.

Health care must be portable for all Canadians

May 5, 2017

“Why is the federal government letting Quebec get away with this violation, when it was so inflexible in the issue of extra-billing?” then federal health critic David Dingwall asked in May 1989.

Unfortunately, when he became Health Minister, he ignored the problem. So have all federal and provincial politicians. They have immediate, red-carpet health care and are not personally affected; only average working class persons — especially from Quebec — are.

This is not merely a matter of financial inconvenience. It can cause real hardship and adversely affect outcomes. A 2010 article in the Globe and Mail described a man living across the river from Ottawa who developed colon carcinoma. There was a year wait for a colonoscopy in West Quebec, and the Ottawa anesthetist refused to see him because he had Quebec insurance. He therefore waited several additional months until surgery could be done in Montreal. Sadly, by now he had extensive lymph node metastases, required high dose treatment, developed bowel obstruction and other complications, and died a couple of years later in great pain.

Number of Canadians seeking health care abroad in 2015 drops over previous year

October 14, 2016

During Sunday’s U.S. presidential debate, Republican candidate Donald Trump said Canada’s “catastrophic” health-care system is prompting Canadians to head south for treatment — but a new report says the number of health tourists has fallen year over year.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-health-tourists-drop-1.3800729

Donald Trump Slams Canada’s Health Care System As ‘Catastrophic’

October 11, 2016

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Donald Trump brought up Canadian health care as an example of a “flawed” public system during the second U.S. presidential debate at Washington University in St. Louis on Sunday.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/09/donald-trump-canada_n_12423178.html