Newcomer Stories: Ontario Health Insurance Plan

Even as many months have passed since our first visit to the doctor, I am still in awe with Canada's medical health plan. This was all very new to me. Most basics, like visits to the doctor, are covered by the health plan. For prescriptions and eye/teeth visits, you'll need to get extra health coverage. Normally these extras are offered at work or you can source an insurance company to help you with this cover.

 

But I digress. Going back to what I was saying...we are currently based in Ontario and we are covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP). It takes 3 months of residency within Ontario to come into effect. We applied for the card a month before our third month and we got it the week we turned 3 months.

  

So I got a chance to use the health card when on a recent occasion, the Canadian Health Department sent me a form to inform me that my youngest child's vaccination was incomplete. She did have all the necessary injections. However, her last injection for measles given in South Africa was only for measles alone. In Canada, it specified that it had to be MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella).

 

There was a walk-in clinic near where we stayed. So one night, around 6pm, we "walked in" to the walk-in clinic. I explained my dilemma to the medical assistant, who looked for my health card and asked me to fill out a registration form. After which, I had to wait around 10 minutes before the doctor could see us.

I explained the situation to the doctor and she proceeded to give my child the injection she needed.  She completed the immunization record and asked me to send it along to the Department. And that was that. A total of a 30-minute visit.

As I walked out, I asked the medical assistant if that was it and she said everything was fine. To think, I did not even have to worry about the bill :-)