From: brewnoser2@gmail.com   
      
   Ottawa Citizen - May 21, 2015   
      
   Why was Eugene Melnyk, a foreign resident, eligible for surgery in Ontario?   
      
      
   Neither the Ottawa Senators nor hospital officials where he was treated will   
   say why team owner Eugene Melnyk qualified to receive a liver transplant at a   
   hospital in Toronto given that he is a permanent resident of Barbados.   
      
   Eligibility rules under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan require patients to   
   make their primary residence in Ontario and spend at least 153 days -- about   
   five months -- in any 12-month period to maintain their coverage under the   
   provincial plan.   
      
   The "snowbird" provision prevents patients from living out of the province and   
   returning to Ontario only when they need health care.   
      
   The hockey team has referred questions on the topic to the hospital.  At a   
   news conference Thursday, the University Health Network put out a written   
   statement saying that officials would not comment on issues involving OHIP   
   coverage.   
      
   "We are not going to discuss Mr. Melnyk's personal health information beyond   
   the transplant and his recovery from transplantation," read the statement.  It   
   was in response to the question: "Mr. Melnyk was born in Canada and is a   
   citizen but he lives in    
   Barbados.  Does he have OHIP coverage?"   
      
   The Ministry of Health also refused to discuss specifics of Melnyk's case.   
      
   It did say, "There may be exceptional cases where non-resident Canadian   
   citizens are in urgent need of an organ transplant.  In the extreme   
   circumstance where a patient's life is in danger, the Ontario Public Hospitals   
   Act requires medical professionals    
   to provide care with the treatments available. In such exceptional cases,   
   individual transplant programs will determine whether transplantation is the   
   only viable treatment."   
      
   It is possible that Melnyk, who is a Canadian citizen, spent enough time in   
   Ontario in the past year to qualify for treatment, though sightings of the   
   former drug-company founder have been scarce since he became ill in January.   
      
   He appeared in a team photo in April but was not seen at games in the   
   Senators' run-up to the playoffs or in their first-round series against the   
   Montreal Canadiens. He was in Ottawa in December for the annual skate for   
   kids. Last October, the Toronto    
   Star interviewed him from his "home in Barbados."   
      
   Alternatively, Melnyk could have paid out-of-pocket for the surgery, which   
   doctors say was the only possible treatment to save his life.   
      
   Uninsured individuals with urgent needs are treated at hospitals and are   
   billed for the services, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care   
   said. Costs can be very high and difficult to predict in advance. Such   
   emergency procedures for non    
   residents "would not be considered medical tourism."  Ontario Health Minister   
   Eric Hoskins has asked hospitals to end so-called medical tourism.   
      
   Ron Labonté, Canada Research Chair in Globalization and Health Equity at the   
   University of Ottawa, has written about so-called medical tourism which, he   
   says raises some ethical concerns, including whether people who pay to use   
   Ontario health facilities    
   crowd out public access and whether the amount they pay actually covers costs.   
      
   In divorce proceedings with his then-wife Lori in 2009, Melnyk filed an   
   affidavit in which he stated that he is a Canadian citizen but is a permanent   
   resident of Barbados. His two children were born in Canada, he said, but have   
   always lived in Barbados.   
      
   "I have made Barbados my home," he said in the sworn declaration.   
      
   At the time, Lori Melnyk referred to a luxury lakefront home in Barrie, Ont.,   
   among the family's assets, but it is unclear who owns the property now.   
      
   The Citizen could find no record of Melnyk personally owning any residential   
   property in Ontario, though he does own homes in the United States and   
   Barbados.   
      
   In property records filed in New York, he lists his home address at Crane   
   Beach in St. Philip parish, on the southeast coast of Barbados.   
      
   Through a Cayman Islands company, EM Holdings Inc., Melnyk is also the    
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
   registered owner of three units in a luxury condominium building in West 67th   
   Street at Broadway in downtown Manhattan, valued in 2006 at $7 million US.   
      
   He also owns a thoroughbred horse farm in Ocala, Fla., and another farm in   
   Kentucky, according to Lori's 2009 affidavit.    
      
   Earlier this year there was a public outcry after a Canadian veteran who had   
   lived in Argentina and Italy for the past 12 years was hit with a $61,000   
   medical bill after receiving treatment for Stage 4 cancer in Ottawa.    
      
   The Ottawa Hospital agreed to take care of the medical bill.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)