Dear Editor,
After reading an article in the Montreal Gazette I want to show residents of the Pontiac how we are denied health services out of province.
Quebec residents who seek medical services in another province usually find that physicians do not accept the Quebec medical card. The patient is billed directly and eventually reimbursed at a lower rate.
For those residents who move to another province, for the first three months, they are still covered by Quebec medicare.
If you have to see a doctor you pay out-of-pocket until your new provincial plan is in effect. This problem cannot be solved by a private insurance plan. Most private travel insurance plans do not cover physicians and hospital services within Canada.
For the past 30 years Quebec is the only province in Canada who refused to sign an inter-provincial agreement covering medical care. The only solution is for Ottawa to pay, all physicians across Canada directly, for care rendered to a patient outside his or her own province.
Precedents exist. Federal prisoners, refugees and a payment mechanism for members of the RCMP. Can you imagine the nightmare for Pontiacers who travel to Ontario two or three times a week and have a sudden medical emergency?
Perhaps our federal member Will Amos along with the new cabinet minister André Fortin and our new Warden Jane Toller could take up this problem and solve it for the good of all the population of the Pontiac.
John Lawn
Campbell’s Bay, Que.
