Post-stroke patients still face discrimination, advocate says

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

A Durham Region man claims he is still being denied access to government-funded post-stroke physiotherapy treatment months after a private member’s bill he hoped would end “age discrimination” was passed in the Ontario Legislature.

Jim McEwen, 62, suffered a stroke in 2010 and says he has been continually deprived of treatment because of his age ever since.

McEwen says patients between the ages of 20 and 64 are at a distinct disadvantage in accessing publicly-funded post-stroke physiotherapy in Ontario.

He believed this would change with the passing of Bill 9, also known as the Improving Post-Stroke Recovery For All Act, which received Royal Assent on Dec. 8, 2016.

However, McEwen says his attempts to get information on the function and implementation of Bill 9 have been relentlessly turned away by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

“I’m of the personal opinion that there is a huge cover up – I believe that because I have called the ministry at least a dozen times,” McEwen says, adding when he does call, he is usually hung up on.

“They’ve all gone quiet,” McEwen says, adding that he was once told by an official with the ministry that Bill 9 has already been implemented.

In an e-mail to The Oshawa Express, David Jensen, media relations coordinator for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, wrote, “Bill 9 does not change the eligibility criteria for publicly-funded physiotherapy programs”.

Jensen adds, “post-stroke patients are already covered under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) and can access government-funded physiotherapy services in a number of settings, including hospitals, Community Care Access Centres, community-based physiotherapy clinics and long-term care homes.”

There are conditions on physiotherapy services, namely that patients are required to receive a referral from a health care professional (doctor or nurse practitioner) and community-based physiotherapy clinics provide OHIP-covered treatment only to patients who meet a number of qualifications.

Bill 9 was introduced by Whitby-Oshawa MPP Lorne Coe in September 2016.

Coe was not available to speak directly to The Express before press time, but said in an emailed statement that the Liberal government has not honoured the original intent of his private member’s bill.

“This Liberal Government has had over six months to fully implement the intent of Bill 9 and provide services to all post-stroke recovery patients, regardless of age. It is absolutely unacceptable that this government continues to discriminate against post-stroke patients based on their age. The people of Ontario deserve a health minister and a government that will say yes to providing post-stroke recovery services, not no,” Coe wrote in the email.

The bill added a new paragraph to Subsection 6 (1) of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care Act (1990), which lists the duties and functions of the provincial health minister.

The paragraph reads, “to oversee and promote an evidence-based approach to the provision of physiotherapy services for post-stroke patients of all ages.”

McEwen says Coe has met with ministry officials on several occasions to get an update on the bill but he has not been able to get answers either.

“We are all being shunned,” McEwen says.

In fact, McEwen took his search for information straight to Health Minister Eric Hoskins in May, when he and another man seeking physiotherapy treatment confronted Hoskins at Queen’s Park.

The conversation was captured on video by Global News and McEwen says Hoskins told his friend, who is 30 years old, that there “may be something that could be done for him”.

However, he claims there has been no follow up for him or his friend after that conversation.

“They gave him false hope,” McEwen says.

McEwen is vice-president of the Durham Region Stroke Recovery Group, which has approximately 30 members from across the region.

“They are a really good group,” McEwen says, offering services such as support and encouragement, exercise and social gatherings for people who are recovering from a stroke.

The group recently released a media statement on Bill 9 requesting that Premier Kathleen Wynne release implementation details of the bill before the calling of the next provincial election.

McEwen says there are many other people who are silently going through the same challenges as him.

“Not enough stroke victims know what to do and how to speak up,” he stated.

McEwen says he feels health care should not be “an election issue” but feels it will not be addressed until the Liberals are ousted from power.

“My next step is to vote Kathleen Wynne out of Ontario,” McEwen says. “As far as I’m concerned she’s got her blinders on and she refuses to deal with this issue.”