Ottawa’s blind policy

Daniel Garcia Rodriguez has experienced some of the best, and worst, that Canada can offer. The best includes St. Michael’s Hospital eye surgeon Dr. David Wong, who saved this Colombian refugee claimant’s vision in an operation largely funded through his own practice and by the hospital. Among the worst is the heartless federal policy that robbed Garcia Rodriguez of medical coverage in the first place.

This case puts a human face to the hardship blindly imposed on many asylum seekers by Bill C-31, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s ill-judged effort to get tough with “bogus refugees.”

Afew muddle-headed right-wingers might claim this shows Kenney’s changes are working — the health care system is spared some costs while someone who really needs a procedure still manages to get it. But that’s nonsense. Bad government policy mustn’t be excused because, in a few cases, others pick up the slack. Altruistic physicians like Wong can’t be expected to carry the entire burden of care that’s been irresponsibly cast aside by government.

Under a set of Draconian federal rules that came into effect on June 30, medical treatment is being denied to failed refugee claimants and those arriving from countries considered safe, unless their condition is deemed a public threat.

As the Star’s Nicholas Keung has reported, Garcia Rodriguez came here in 2007 with his Venezuelan-born wife and filed a refugee claim based on persecution by paramilitary thugs in Colombia. The Aurora man’s plea was rejected in January, although his wife’s claim was accepted.

Vision problems in Garcia Rodriguez’s right eye, due to a chronic retinal detachment, became evident in July. But Ottawa had terminated his health coverage and despite Wong’s pleas refused to grant an exemption from its shameful policy. With his patient at risk of blindness in the affected eye, Wong did the right thing and went ahead with a $10,000 operation on Monday.

It’s a pity there’s no procedure available to transplant some empathy into Kenney and his Conservative colleagues. These cuts need to be reversed. The program that Ottawa axed cost $84 million last year — just 0.04 per cent of health spending. Yet it served 128,000 refugees.

Ottawa is ruthlessly imposing hardship for relatively small savings, forcing people to seek compassion where they can.