Niagara At Large is posting the following October 18 open letter from the newly elected MPP for the Welland Riding, NDP Cindy Forster, to the Liberal government’s health mnister, Deb Matthews. It speaks to the escalating health costs residents in this region and others in Ontario around transferring their information from one doctor to another.
To Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews
“Since a new government cabinet is not being sworn in until October 20thand the urgency of this matter, I am sending this letter to your attention as current health minister regarding some 1,800 patients now in limbo regarding their health care.
Welland, Ontario Riding MPP Cindy Forster calls for action on costly transfers of patients' health files.
Bob Fralick of Welland is 80 years old and he’s now looking for another doctor along with his wife Mary and called my office when told it would cost nearly $40.00 for the first five pages of his patient record and $1.55 for each page after that. He is understandably outraged.
This could have been avoided when you consider Ann Cavoukian, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner called upon the province, in May 2011, to regulate the amount doctors and other health care providers can charge to provide patients with copies of their health records. Yet the government has refused to do anything about this long-standing problem.
Also, the McGuinty government drafted a regulation around such fees in 2006, but it was never passed. So today, people like Bob Fralick are forced to pay unregulated and unreasonable fees. It is time for these fees to be regulated so that patient’s rights are protected.
Minister I would seriously suggest that assistance be provided for these patients, many of them seniors in getting their records copied or transferred with no fees attached when and if they can find another physician in Welland.
I look forward to your timely response.
Sincerely, Cindy Forster
(We invite our Niagara At Large readers to share their views below)
Niagara At Large 
Is it any wonder people are outraged at the way they are treated by the system, that we finance with our tax dollars, the occupy movement world wide, the sit ins and protests at Queens Park, the voter malaise as people boycott the polls and stay away in droves,the deadlock in Washington DC our tone deaf Premier Dalton McGuinty no wonder people are angry and getting angrier by the day.
LikeLike
This is a sad episode. Long-time Welland doctor Dr. Shah (note the correct spelling) made arrangements to turn his practice over to Dr. Belgasem as of Oct. 1, but by the end of the second week, Dr. Belgasem had given up the practice because of a family emergency. His office transferred all patient records to Dr. Ravindran (again note the correct spelling) in St. Catharines. For many of Dr. Shah’s former patients, many of them seniors living in Welland, this is indeed going to be very costly (after seeing the same doctor for close to 30 years the number of pages in your record are going to be substantial) and inconvenient. But there are also former patients, who found commuting to Welland from St. Catharines inconvenient, who are now seeing Dr. Ravindran.
It’s long past time for the Liberal government to regulate the amount that can be charged for one’s patient records. Better still, the doctor currently with the file should simply transfer it to the new doctor for a nominal service charge. Yes, doctors will argue they took these records, but they’ve been paid quite well by OHIP to take those records. Ultimately, without the patient there would be no records in the first place.
LikeLike
And we keep electing these idiots – so who really are the idiots?
LikeLike
The WHOLE medical system in Niagara needs to give its head a shake.
LikeLike