I wrote the government at aoda.input@ontario.ca the following email to support AODA Alliance’s Finalized Brief on Health Care Accessibility Barriers. Join me and email them to; just one sentence to say you support the Brief is all that needed. Read more on the Alliance’s website.
I support AODA Alliance’s Finalized Brief on Health Care Accessibility Barriers.
I’d like to add that being able to access health care isn’t just about being able to get into a clinic or doctors office, but also about being able to have the doctor come to you when you’re unable to leave home due to the nature of your illness or recovering from surgery or type of disability. Telemedicine allows a person to receive timely and good health care.
This is especially important in mental health care.
Conditions such as OCD, depression, ADD, agoraphobia could be treated better if the physician could begin treatment in the home through telemedicine. The physician can see the living environment and understand the complexity of the condition better; the patient wouldn’t have to recover well enough to travel and get to the clinic on time just to receive some treatment; the physician could better guide the patient to leave home and eventually receive treatment in the clinic; and the physician would not have to spend time travelling, allowing for more hours to see more patients.
Not paying for laptop to laptop telemedicine excludes patients who can’t get to OHIP-designated centres. And wastes a doctor’s time by forcing her to travel if she’s not at an OHIP centre just to talk to and see her patient.
It isn’t only patients who live vast distances from their doctors who need telemedicine. It’s also the thousands who forego health care or receive diminished care because they can’t leave their home or they can’t get to the clinic for whatever reason.
Dropping this artificial barrier to telemedicine will ultimately cost the system less and speed up health recovery, leading to faster return to work and taxes to the government.
Accessibility is a right not an option and benefits all Ontarians.
