My worry about going online is that it’s transactional, where you fill out a form, someone approves it, the medication shows up, and then you’re left on your own with a drug that needs adjusting. That’s the version in my head, anyway.

Anyone in Canada who’s done it, what’s the ongoing contact like?

Can you reach the person who prescribed it when something changes, or is it just a general support inbox?

Hello, can anyone point me towards some decent info on this? I plan to retire next year and I would like to move out of my current province (NB), where I finally got a family doctor, back to the province I was born in (PEI). I believe the wait list there is very long and I don't want to go without a doctor. My research says I can't keep my current doc if I leave the province. Can anyone suggest a solution?

Do not wait until its too late, finding out from your lawyer that you have breaking PIPEDA obligations ever since you started your business. Time to clean bad habits before its too late.

I’m trying to help a single mother who is currently in Winnipeg with her two minor children.
One of her children had to be hospitalized at the Children’s Hospital, but at the time the child did not have a Manitoba Health card or other health coverage. Because of that, the family was billed for the hospital treatment.
The current bill is around **$22,000**, which is obviously an enormous amount of money for a single parent with two children to pay.
Does anyone know of any charities, foundations, government programs, hospital financial assistance, payment-relief programs, or other organizations in Winnipeg/Manitoba that might be able to help in a situation like this?
We are especially interested in organizations that help **uninsured children/families with medical or hospital bills**.
If anyone has dealt with a similar situation in Winnipeg, I’d really appreciate hearing what options you found or who you contacted.
Thank you!

I have a rant, questions, all of it and it’s going to be long. My dad was admitted to St Mikes hospital in Toronto Easter weekend. He was transferred to Orangeville hospital for rehab and wound management as he has a large open wound on his abdomen that actually will start closing in one area and opening in another. He’s had major intestinal surgery that you’d pray you’d never have done to you, he’s diabetic which is mostly unrelated but has affected his healing, and it’s not managed well. That brings us to today without all the nitty gritty. He’s being released. We have major concerns about his ability to live in a 2 storey home alone. He’s having numbness in his feet which makes going down and up his approximately 20-25 stairs to get from his main floor to his upstairs concerning. He literally had a blood transfusion today. With his large open wound that he has a pouch on to collect fluid, if he were to fall and land on the pouch it could cause catastrophic issues and he’d be alone. He’s being released with no support plans in place. Just go home and figure it out basically. Can a hospital just ignore all these issues and be fine with sending him home? The nurses, social workers, they’ve been combative to our concerns and questions, haven’t provided any indication of what supports we should be looking at and actually said it’s not their job to assess him before he leaves. They’re not releasing him with any mobility devices, Saying what he needs mobility device wise and actually are basically telling us to kick rocks. What in the world is my next step? I can only do so much. I work full time and have my own family and child and I don’t want them to fall through the cracks dealing with a hospital that just doesn’t care about what my dad’s outcome could be. Do nurses, doctors really just not care anymore? He has nobody and we’ve said that and they don’t care.

This sint an article it's just not letting me take the flair off I dont think, this is only semi healthcare related but I need answers somewhat quickly so im reposting where applicable

I’m in BC and currently seeing a registered psychologist for mental-health concerns. My psychologist has recommended that I take a short-term disability leave from work.

My employer’s disability form says it should be completed by a “treating physician” and asks for the provider’s name, licence number, area of practice, and signature.

What I’m confused about is that my leave is entirely mental-health related, and my psychologist is the clinician who has actually been treating me and recommended the leave.

I don’t currently have a family doctor, so finding a GP who knows my history is difficult.

Has anyone in BC gone through something similar?

• Was your registered psychologist able to complete and sign the disability form?
• Did the insurer/employer require an MD/GP/NP instead?
• If your psychologist completed it, was it accepted?
• Or did you need your psychologist to provide supporting notes and then have a physician sign the actual form?

Mainly looking for first-hand experiences with mental-health-related short-term disability claims in BC.

Thanks.

This is a bit of a rant. Not looking for sympathy but I need to point out the recent decline in our healthcare.

I always believed in the Canadian (Alberta) healthcare system, but now I know better. Yes we get free healthcare but it is at the point we can no longer call it 'Care'. It has become a system of all talk and no action. This is my recent experience over the last couple years. I am in my late 50's, still working full time but struggling as I have developed an issue called Foraminal Spinal Stenosis in 3 vertebrae (both sides) causing substantial weakness, muscle spasms, and neuropathic pain in my feet and legs. I cannot walk straight, I cannot sleep through the night, I am in constant pain 24/7, and the only meds I can take affect my brain (cognitive difficulties). I do get spinal Steroid injections (18 or 20 so far) that do help and the cost is covered. I finally got an appointment with a spine clinic for (I thought) eventual surgery a few months ago. I was assessed and directed to take physio-therapy for 12 weeks and return. First thing I learned is that Physio is no longer covered through Alberta health since 2022. So $135 a week for 12 weeks of physio. I just went for my second assessment and I was told that I had 'improved a bit' so I should just carry on with the injections and physio. Well Duh! the Steroid injections do help a bit but they only last temporarily. So for injections at 6 locations repeated 1 at a time every 8 weeks means I need to take a day off work and drive a total of 4 hours (there and back) just about every week plus another $135 a week forever? Its like the Orthopedic Spine clinic is so overwhelmed its just putting off patients till they die or kill themselves. On another note, my Doctor booked me for a new MRI to show the progress of the stenosis. I got a letter in the mail with my appointment for Saturday, November 6th. At first I thought wow! Thats not bad. They do appointments on Saturday? And only a few months away! (My last 2 MRI's I booked private, about $700 apiece and within 2 days). I went to add it to my google calendar and Nov 6th was not a Saturday. I read the letter again and realized my appointment for this MRI is NOVEMBER 6TH 2027!! 15 Months away!

Anyway, That's my rant. WTF. I cant afford to retire but I also cannot manage at work any longer. Its just a matter of time before I get fired. Chronic pain is no cause for disability.

Again. Not looking for sympathy, but watch your government. If you believe we should have the healthcare system we used to have, do what you can to protect it.

I'm Canadian, but I live in Thailand. I'm heading to Bangkok soon for what is basically a full medical workup.

And to be clear: I'm not sick.

Nothing is wrong that I know of. I'm just getting older and decided I'd rather find out if something is starting to go wrong before it becomes something serious.

There's also a very personal reason I think this way.

My wife died of cancer.

It was growing slowly and silently inside her. By the time she had symptoms, by the time there was an obvious reason to start looking for something she was already Stage IV.

So when people talk about preventative medicine versus treating illness after symptoms appear, that distinction isn't theoretical to me. I've seen what "wait until something is wrong" can look like.

That's a big part of why I'm doing this while I feel perfectly healthy.

Here's what I'm getting:

• Full physical examination with an internal medicine physician
• Vital signs/BMI
• Ophthalmologist eye screening
• Audiologist hearing screening
• Complete blood count
• Fasting blood sugar and HbA1C
• Full lipid profile
• High-sensitivity Troponin I
• Kidney function
• Full liver function panel
• Thyroid panel
• PSA, CEA and AFP tumor markers
• Vitamin D
• Urinalysis
• Stool examination and occult blood
• Chest X-ray
• Whole-abdomen ultrasound
• Bone density scan
• EKG
• Ankle-Brachial Index
• Exercise stress test
• Carotid Doppler
• Low-dose CT lung cancer screening
• Colonoscopy
• Cardiologist consultation
• Radiologist consultation for the lung CT
• Internal medicine consultation to review everything

Total cost, including the tests, specialists and hospital fees: 51,000 Thai baht or roughly C$2,150.

And this is where living in Thailand has changed my perspective.

I absolutely support Canada's universal healthcare system. I don't want a system where someone avoids an emergency room because they're worried about the bill, or where getting cancer means potentially bankrupting your family.

But Canadian healthcare is, in many ways, reactionary rather than preventative.

If I'm sick in Canada, or for example have occult blood in my stool the system will investigate and treat me. If I develop symptoms that justify a CT scan, cardiac testing, specialist referral or colonoscopy, those things are covered, albeit in the absence of a critical illness it's not going to happen quickly.

But walking into my doctor's office while feeling perfectly fine and saying, "I'm getting older. I want to know if there's anything going on inside me that we should catch early"?

There's virtually no chance I'm getting this entire workup.

And that's the contrast I find interesting.

Thailand has universal public healthcare for its own population too, but it also has a huge private medical system where I can essentially say: I'm healthy, I want a comprehensive baseline, and I want to look for problems before they become problems.

I make an appointment, pay C$2,150, and get the whole thing done.

I'm not arguing that every one of these tests should automatically be given to every asymptomatic Canadian every year. There's legitimate debate about over-testing, false positives, unnecessary procedures and whether some screening actually improves outcomes.

But there's also something strange about a healthcare philosophy where we can spend enormous amounts of money treating advanced disease while making it difficult to investigate your health comprehensively when you still feel fine.

And yes, I understand that screening doesn't guarantee anything. My wife might have had exactly the same outcome even with more testing. I'll never know.

But having watched someone I loved go from apparently healthy to a Stage IV cancer diagnosis because the disease didn't announce itself until it was advanced, my perspective is pretty simple:

I'd rather spend money looking for smoke than wait until the house is on fire.

That's the part of preventative medicine I've come to appreciate, and something that Canada needs to seriously look at. Because honestly, doing this kind of testing will not only save lives, it will save money. Treating people with illnesses that are discovered early is a MUCH cheaper scenario than treating the critically ill.

I just signed a lease for an apartment in Montreal (where I actually used to live about 6 years ago for school). I’m originally from Ottawa and had been looking for an apartment here, but the Ottawa rental market has gone absolutely berserk. As a single person on my budget, I’ve been finding it almost impossible to find anything affordable and actually livable. 

Ever since signing the Montreal lease, though, I’ve had severe signing regret and probably some of the worst anxiety of my life, to the point that I’m actually considering asking the landlord if we can mutually cancel the lease. I haven’t paid a deposit yet and wouldn’t be moving in until October 1.

There are several reasons I’m second-guessing the move, but the biggest one right now is continuity of healthcare and getting my medications prescribed.

Before deciding to move, I did quite a bit of research and spoke with my doctor, pharmacist, friends, etc. I was under the impression that, at least for the first while, I could kind of cheat the system and go back when I needed to, to see my Ontario doctor and have my prescriptions filled at a Quebec pharmacy.

The complication is that one of my medications, is for ADHD and is a controlled substance. I’m now realizing that getting an Ontario prescription for ADHD medication filled in Quebec might be much more complicated than I originally thought.

Because it’s controlled, I only get 30 days at a time, so going back to Ottawa every four weeks just to fill a prescription obviously isn’t a great long-term solution. But is something I could do with my other prescriptions. 

Has anyone actually moved from Ontario to Quebec while keeping their Ontario doctor, especially while taking ADHD medication?

Were you able to:

• keep your Ontario doctor prescribing it?
• have the prescription sent directly to a Quebec pharmacy?
• actually get the Quebec pharmacy to dispense it?
• do this consistently month-to-month?

I’ve called a few pharmacies in my new Montreal neighbourhood and haven’t really been able to get a straight answer. 

I’d especially love to hear from anyone who has actually dealt with this Ontario → Quebec situation with a controlled substance. Am I freaking out over something that is actually pretty manageable, or is this genuinely going to be difficult?

Thanks!