Not quite a birthright

>> A child born in Canada to foreign parents
is denied Medicare

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Photo by Jason Felker

Due to government intransigence, tossed in with a dose of incompetence, Stepanka and Rudolf Krajicek’s seven-month-old son Sean was looking at a lifelong kidney ailment. Born last July at the Royal Vic to Czech parents who have lived in Montreal since October 1999 and hold a five-year, multiple-entry visa, Sean was diagnosed with a urinary-tract blockage that, without an operation, would affect him for the rest of his life. But because he had no Medicare card, he was not admitted to the Montreal Children’s Hospital until a donor from the Czech community ponied up over $10,000 as a down payment to cover the operation’s costs. The sum for the February operation, which was successful, will probably double that.

Sean has no Medicare card for two reasons. First, provincial bureaucrats at the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) found the application incomplete because his parents left their Medicare number off the application form even though, as Czech citizens, they aren’t eligible for coverage and never applied for it. In October the RAMQ mailed the application back but left off the apartment number. It was sent back to the RAMQ, but no further action was taken. As the operation’s date approached, the Krajiceks still had no card for Sean and were getting frantic. A complete application for a Medicare card was re-submitted on February 8. On February 18, a day before the operation, they received notice that their application had been denied because their status as visitors determines what rights their Canadian-born child is entitled to. Medicare is not one of them. For the record, Sean is ineligible for Czech citizenship.

“I have asked for nothing,” says Stepanka, a registered nurse in her native Prague. She is here legally and has never requested nor received any form of government assistance. “All my papers are in order. Why do they ask about my papers? It’s not about me, it’s not about my papers. It’s about my baby.”

But as the law is written, it is about her as well. According to Nathalie Pitre, responsible for press relations at the RAMQ, anyone who can prove they have an established, permanent link in Quebec is entitled to a Medicare card. “If a child is born in Quebec,” Pitre says, “their eligibility is directly linked to the parents’ status. We need proof of an established link, such as a letter from Immigration Canada granting landed immigrant status.” Without it, they aren’t eligible.

The Krajicek’s legal counsel, Geeta Narang, says the problem lies with a law she calls illegal. She feels that there is the potential to take advantage of people like the Krajiceks, and it is acted on. “Sean is being discriminated against because of his parents’ citizenship,” she says. “That’s something that is utterly out of his control. The parents’ status is irrelevant. This is a question of a kid’s rights. It’s about his right to Medicare, not his parents’.”
Narang filed for an internal review with the RAMQ this week and expects an answer back within 90 days. She says she is seeking a Medicare card for Sean, a full reimbursement for his parents, and to modify the regulations so the emphasis on the law is on children and not their parents’ status. :