[A]fter two weeks of suffering with flu-like symptoms, Ravary needed to see her family doctor. But as she soon found out, she picked the wrong day to drop in for a check-up. That day, Ravary contacted her doctor’s office and was told to visit a nearby community health centre, where he occasionally works.
When she arrived at the centre, she was greeted by a French-speaking receptionist who promptly informed her that the health clinic was exclusively for “French people.”
“I said to her, ‘that’s discrimination,'” said Ravary, who was then told to visit her family doctor during his regular office hours, or visit another walk-in clinic. “I didn’t get past the reception at the front.”
[…]
The clinic was established 15 years ago specifically to treat the nearly 10,000 Francophones in the small Ontario community, although everyone in the greater community helps fund it.
It turns out the Ontario provincial government agrees with the clinic’s exclusive policy.
George Smitherman, Ontario’s Health Minister, said in Toronto Tuesday, “We have something called Community Health Centres and they are designed to be community governed, targeting specific populations.”
Plse say this isn’t so, Joe!! ??
what next, Muslim or Jewish or Sikh only health centers ??
For once I agree with Kate’s editorial slant. The policy is pure bollocks.
Linguistic apartheid….only in Kanadar you say!
I am Treasurer and long time Board member of an Ontario Community Health Centre in a bilingual community and find this discriminatory practice totally unacceptable.
The solution? Call a special community meeting and hold the Board accountable to serve the needs of the community by accepting ALL clients. If no success, fire the Board and elect a better one. CHC’s can be controlled by democratic action.
Contact me if you need any help.
Sounds cold and heartless, and perhaps frivilous, but there could be more to this incident. I heard Health Minister Smitherman say this clinic is providing service for a segment of the population.
This woman was not in a life or death situation and there were other walk-in clinics in the vicinity that she could visit. I’m sure they would have done something for her if she was in a life or death situation.
Thanks for posting this article – I’d like to think that this happended because some clerial or receptionist doesn’t have a clue BUT I fear that there is a bigger policy at play in that clinic. Shame on these guys! Human idiocy knows no bounds. People should not have to pass qualifying tests to see if they can get health services.
This clinic was serving a segment of the population???
Can you imagine the uproar if she was fFrench and was turned away from a health clinic because she didn’t speak English???
“This woman was not in a life or death situation and there were other walk-in clinics in the vicinity that she could visit”
What the hell does that have to do with the price of tea in China. “Oh well, you might lose your arm, but your not going to die, so fuck you, walk down the road??”.
Come on, health care is something that should blanket everyone. I could give a shit if some doctor wants to open a private clinic, but there should be a law with one mean fine attached for turning anyone away that is in need.
I’m a capitalist in the truest sense of the word, but not when it comes to healthcare. No one should ever be turned away from a publicly funded health clinic, and if they don’t speak the language, to bad for the clinic.
What if that person had been seriously ill, and as a result of being turned away, had died.
If it was a member of my family, I’d have sued the shit out of that clinic… to the point of burying it so deeply they’d have to close it. Not to mention the discrimination charges, human rights complaints, and every other piece of legal crap I could get a lawyer to file against that clinic.
That is not cool at all.
If this community health centre is anything like the one I am a member of, it is not a walk-in clinic. You have to be a member to get served. In this, it is the same as any other doctor’s office.
Language is not the issue; membership is. While language might be a key criterion to become a member of this CHC, it is a common approach used by all governments when providing services to official minority language groups.
If they refuse treatment to the general public then They should be funded only by their target clientelle….off the public teat if you don’t serve the general public.
Are these same clients sent to the front of the line for further diagnostic tests, and appointments with specialists, once they have been seen by doctors in this ‘For French’ only clinic?
Will these specially served clients then be willing to be seen by French-speaking specialists only or horn in on the first available one?
This is wrong on any number of levels.
This could have been handled so much better.
Simply allowing her to see her doctor, because he was her doctor before he moved to this clinic, and having him resign as her doctor after treating her would have diffused the situation.
To me this smacks of a lazy-ass doctor who wants his receptionist to do the dirty work for him.
Simply telling her himself that the clinic was set up to provide for a minority language group and seeing patients outside clinic parameters undermines care for those it was set up to serve may have satisfied her.
A doctor who leaves his practice for another has a duty to try and arrange alternate arrangements for the patient family they leave. This was apparently not done in this case and the doctor could have done more for a previous patient.
“I’m sorry. This clinic was created so that we could exclusively serve a segment of the public known as ‘white people’. I’m afraid we don’t allow Negroes in here. Sure we’d help if it was an emergency, but it’s not, so please see one of your Negro doctors.”
Somehow I don’t think that’d fly. And to be clear, I’m glad it wouldn’t.
Language and race are two wildly different criterion JP.
You all may have noticed my name and assumed I am either a teeth grinder or a dentist. I am both.
Let me use a concrete example of why I do not think this is a bad policy.
It is extremely difficult for me to obtain informed consent from someone who does not speak english. Descibing a proposed health treatment along with risks and possible solutions is extremely difficult without a common language. It is already extremely difficult because I speak dentist and my patients speak english. I wouldn’t want to be a treated by a doctor in anything other than my best language.
In my town we have a Viatnamese dentist that is very busy. If her clinic was flooded with anglos to the point of saturation, then many of her ethnic patient base would have to come see me and receive possibly inappropriate or unwanted care from me.
I do reiterate that more could have been done by this patient’s doctor when he quit his practice to go to the special language clinic.
This is blatant discrimination. Why isn’t the provincial government laying charges? Why aren’t the RCMP involved. I’m sure that, should the reverse ever occur, the French-speakers would be all over this like ugly on an ape.
So, now it’s at least a four-tier healthcare system.
Why can’t they name the community?
Dentistry is not health care and is not supported by taxpayers. Receptionists and physicians in an Ontario Health Centre ought to be bilingual. In our community all citizens are members of the CHC and entitled to care. Pro-French discrimination in Ontario has to stop.
Molarmauler, the community subsidizes this clinic. Most dental offices are independent, are they not?
And would you expect to have as many walk-ins as a medical clinic?
And the significance of the idiotic reference to Tommy Douglas in the context of this story is….??
wotz dat? I speik francois…observee’ moi.
bonnjourno parlet vouzz froggie? moi tres bean! (you know i just got a brain fart…how’d ya say thanks…oh yea, mercy!
mercy, au resevour!
Now gimme that dang #@%K#%$@#$* medicine!
Whether dentistry is private vs. public is not part of my argument. In any event, in most cases a GP is a private deliverer of health care with a public payer. He is paid a fee for service and has his own staff and overhead to deal with. But I digress.
My main point is, you cannot deliver adequate care to someone when there is a language barrier. If someone sees a niche they wish to exploit and operating outside of the niche makes it impossible to serve your niche, I see no trouble with being selective.
With shortages of GPs, it could be very difficult to maintain your minority language clientele without taking a firm line about eligibility.
While I agree with the concept I would still be very interested in seeing the details of it’s implementation and would be disappointed to see if there was political interference involved- before and after the fact.
The community in Ontario is Cornwall located on the scenic banks of the mighty St.Lawrence. Yes it has a sizeable francophone community also anglophone, with virtually everyone bilingual. In my mind its main clain to fame is, it is the drug running, people smuggling and gun smuggling centre of North America. A native reserve straddles both sides of the border. Even the R.C.M.P. won’t go in there.
Tommy Douglas is commonly held up as the “father of medicare”. This is just another of his twisted little bastards.
You say it’s one of Tommy’s bastards, but offer nothing to back it up. Talk is cheap. And my apologies to idiots everywhere for using you as a basis for comparison.
You’ve really got a talent for witty repartee Rod, kudos to you. Perhaps you should try your hand at standup, if you haven’t already.
Kate’s point is valid, because the myth of the medical system being fair & equal is just that, a myth; Tommy Douglas is given credit for what is supposed to be such a great system, it’s only fair that his name be associated with its shorcomings as well.
My, my you certainly exhibit undue umbrage at Kate’s innocuous remarks!
“We have something called Community Health Centres and they are designed to be community governed, targeting specific populations.”
Hmm, you’d think that specific population would somthing like, oh say, sick people. But what do I know, I don’t run a community health centre.
I think the idea of publicly funded “separate but equal” has already been tried south of us, and proven to be not good enough…
Kevin- Wow, that’s quite a stretch. Hope you didn’t hurt yourself. But I’m sure you’ll only avail yourself of private services if you did. It wasn’t innocuous so much as gratuitous.
This clinic is funded by all taxpayers of Ontario therefore should be open to everyone no matter the language. Since this story first aired last night it has been reported that this woman’s husband has been declared persona non grata in this clinic also–he is fluently bilingual but because his wife only speaks English he is now also barred from using the clinic.
Harry; first of all this is her personal physician – his regular clinic directed her to go there. Secondly, this clinic is supported
with public dollars (article doesn’t say how much). It is reprehensible that the receptionist didn’t even ask her if it was serious or ask her doctor to come out and talk to her.
Hey Folks!!!!! Read the 1st para.
“Ravary needed to see her family doctor. But as she soon found out, she picked the wrong day to drop in for a check-up. That day, Ravary contacted her doctor’s office and was told to visit a nearby community health centre, where he occasionally works.”
The Doc. is still her Doc.,He just wasn’t at his own clinic “that day” ,he was over at the French only Clinic.
She had had the symptoms for “two weeks” and hadn’t done anything about it?
Let’s use some common sense here. They’re both wrong (patient and clinic’s front desk)
Ted: She had the symptoms for two weeks. Ok fine. So maybe she wanted to avoid unnecessary use (a laudable intent)but then decided after the persistence of the symptoms that maybe she had better attend to this! That is a non-argument, one that I guarantee you would not make were you in her shoes.
And the subject was: “French only” which is utterly at odds with the philosophy of our much vaunted health care system (which BTW the elites don’t much like themsleves, eh?).
It is probably also PET’s twisted bastard too!
Interesting. I totally agree that it was 100% wrong for the woman to have been turned away — especially since her doctor had always helped her in English at the other facility and especially since it’s a public funded facility.
But I still think it’s ironic that conservatives, who are all for private healthcare, would be upset about people being turned away from a healthcare provider. If/when we get private healthcare, people that can’t pay WILL be turned away from clinics every day
Didn’t hurt me as nearly as much as it seemed to disturb you Rod. 🙂
Someone blaspheme one of your socialist gods?
If Kate’s connection is gratuitous so is any mention of Tommy Douglas in relation to the benefits of public health care.
Yes, I’d probably prefer to use a private service if meant avoiding listening to someone proclaim about the evils of private involvement in health care in an effort to protect a union hegemony.
Todd: A conservative would only be miffed by being turned away if s/he had already paid for the service through income and other taxes. It is supposed to be a universal service, fully portable across the whole country, which I believe would include a “french clinic” in Ontario for a Ontario resident. I think most of us are shocked to discover that we have medical apartheid in Canada.
Todd, private health care in concert with the public system isn’t just a conservative idea. Quebec, which is as left as the day is long, is attempting its own experiment in private health care delivery. SWEDEN, of all places, is currently the best model out there in terms of mixing the private and public systems.
Isn’t it time we move on to deciding how we can incorporate private clinics into our public system for the greatest national good, rather than continue to wait for an archaic and underfunded system to heal itself?
There is a severe shortage of doctors in Cornwall. Finding a family doctor is extremely difficult and far too many people end up going to the hospital emergency.
Kevin-I am not in the least disturbed, nor do I take umbrage, in fact this site’s got me in stitches. I would be concerned, however, if I thought anyone took this conservative claptrap seriously.
The end result of life is: Death. Or is it? +
Wife, 91, dies days after B.C. officials separate her from her husband
The son of an elderly Rossland woman says hospital officials “killed my mother” by separating her from her husband of 70 years.
via nealenews
Another shining example of unionized socialistic self contradictory scamming. I said it from day 1 and still feel the same way, I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!!! I am sick of the socialists ripping you me and everyone off then when we bitch about they laugh (like that goof ron)
Yes Rod, it’s common for people to use “idiotic” and offer “apologies to idiots everywhere for using you as a basis for comparison” when “in stitches”. You demonstrate your intelligence admirably.
Kate probably has enough of a sense of class to not further indulge you with further responses to your nonsense. Bereft of such an attribute I’m not under such constraints.
Please provide us with the wisdom of your non-conservative ways.
Imagine if something along that vein had happened in Alberta.
The CBC would be screaming for Klein’s head on a pike.
Kevin- I don’t have to provide anybody with anything. However, if I posted an item on MY blog, I would have the class to back it up with a fact or two.
This is an appalling story, but the response by the left-wing government in Toronto is hardly surprising. Remember McGuinty was in favour of Sharia which is, after all, a legal system targetted for a particular community. And it is only going to get worse until we get rid of the 60s generation who have come up with all these wacky and dangerous ideas.
Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Did you not read the “Do Not Feed The Trolls” sign out front? It doesn’t make any sense to try and discuss a point with someone who is obviously high on methane from having their head so far up their anal orfice.
BTW: The great urinalversal healthcare system is starting to sound like Animal Farm. sick is good but sick AND french is obviously better.
Yes, yes Texas Canuck you’re right; I’m sorry, but you know I can’t read. I guess I’ll just go out to the porch & play the banjo a spell. Damn, those trolls can be good eatin’.
I promise to behave better the next time.
>>However, if I posted an item on MY blog, I would have the class to back it up with a fact or two.
Oh yeah? Prove it.
Texas- I merely inquired as to the connection between Tommy and the item posted. The headline intimated a connection in a gratuitous,vile and predictably conservative sort of way. Your inability to come up with a cogent reply is in no way indicitave of what you call “trolling” on my part. I would be more than willing to cede to an intelligent and relevant response. Failing that, my contempt will have to suffice.
Or do you people only want to drink each others bathwater??