Paralyzed Filipina worker to meet health minister
Former temporary foreign worker caught up in government limbo
A paralyzed temporary foreign worker left to pay her own medical bills after a biking accident has been promised a meeting with Alberta’s health minister.
The former McDonald’s worker is “falling through the cracks of a federal and provincial struggle,” Health Minister Sarah Hoffman said in the legislature Wednesday.
A meeting with Maria Victoria Venancio is all Hoffman has planned until the particulars are cleared up, Hoffman’s spokesman Timothy Wilson said Sunday.
“Vicky is in a very unfortunate and also very complicated situation. It involves the Alberta health-care system, it involved the temporary foreign worker program and it also now involves the federal immigration program,” Wilson said.
The meeting has not yet been scheduled, but the news is encouraging, said Venancio.
“I can feel she understands what I’m going through,” Venancio said Sunday. “She even said I’m inspirational.”
Venancio’s Alberta healthcare coverage expired with her work permit after she could no longer work. She relies on donations and a court settlement from the accident to pay her expenses.
In 2012, as she rode her bike to work at the McDonald’s restaurant in Mill Woods, a truck hit her and left her paralyzed. She now spends most of her time in a wheelchair, with some use of her arms.
“I’m doing better these last few months. I’m getting more strength and I’m getting more independent,” Venancio said.
After months of physiotherapy treatment at a University of Alberta rehabilitation clinic, the 29-year-old can now take a few steps with a walker.
“On the first step, I was holding my tears already. I couldn’t hold it any more. I just cried. It’s really amazing. I’m so thankful I can move my legs again,” Venancio said.
Had she been injured on the job, Workers’ Compensation would have covered her expenses, even as a temporary foreign worker. Instead, neither the government nor her former workplace has paid her medical bills, she said.
Hoffman said in a statement earlier in June that she supports health coverage for temporary foreign workers.
Venancio’s supporters — many of whom she has never met—raised about $15,000 at a benefit concert Saturday.
“Everyone made me feel like I have my family here,” Venancio said. “All the people supporting me really help me emotionally.”
Venancio supports her elderly parents in the Philippines and is determined to retrain and return to work, in Canada.
In addition to a suit against McDonald’s for disability compensation, Venancio is appealing to be allowed to stay in Canada on compassionate grounds. The federal immigration department issued her a deportation order in February.