PERSONAL STORIES
Friday’s Federal Court decision on refugee health care came with stories of fear and desperation and “the extreme human cost” of the federal government’s crackdown.
Justice Anne Mactavish’s decision tells of a diabetic who survives on donated insulin, a man who nearly lost his sight because he couldn’t afford surgery and a 14-year-old who couldn’t join her Sea Cadets group on a camping trip because she didn’t have a health card.
The stories were contained in affidavits filed as part of an effort to overturn the federal government’s two-yearold decision to severely limit health coverage for failed refugee claimants and people from countries deemed to be safe.
Mactavish referred often to these affidavits in her lengthy ruling.
Hanif Ayubi is a diabetic from Afghanistan. While the government denied him refugee status, it won’t send him back to Afghanistan, saying the country is too dangerous.
He ekes out a precarious existence with minimumwage jobs in restaurants and gas stations.
His doctors say he needs a number of medications to deal with his condition and, until two years ago, they were paid for. Now he relies on a community health centre which helps him get some drugs and provides insulin donated by a drug company.
Then there is Daniel Garcia Rodrigues, a failed refugee claimant from Colombia, who was told in August, 2012, that he had a retinal detachment that would need immediate surgery if his vision was to be saved.
But he had no insurance to cover the $10,000 operation. Only a doctor who agreed to operate for a fraction of the normal cost, and waived his fees for post-op work, saved the eye.
Rodrigues’ wife had been granted refugee status and eventually both qualified as permanent residents.
The judge also wrote of Rosa Maria Aylas Marcos de Arroyo and her teenage daughter, Naomi, failed refugee claimants from Peru seeking to stay in Canada on compassionate grounds.
While awaiting a decision, Naomi joined the cadets. But in February of 2013, she had to skip a cadet camping trip and concerns about her lack of a health card raised questions about whether she could stay in the group.