Canadian-born baby denied health card in Saskatchewan

Her son was born in Regina and has a passport and a Social Insurance Number, but he’s being denied a Saskatchewan health number because of her immigration status.

Pereira, who asked her first name not be used, came to Saskatchewan in 2018 from India to go to school. Nine months ago, she gave birth to her son in Regina.

She is currently waiting on another student visa and has a letter of offer to study at the University of Saskatchewan, but because of her status, her son was denied health coverage from the province.

Pereira was really upset when she found out.

“It doesn’t make sense. He is a Canadian, so he needs all the rights of a citizen,” she said.  “Being the citizen of a country, every citizen is the same, every citizen has equal rights … so why this no health card?”

Pereira has had to pay out of pocket for her baby’s checkups, shelling out about $60 each time. When they both recently contracted COVID-19, she had to pay for the tests. And when her son started having trouble breathing and had to go to the hospital, she was presented with a $360 bill for his care.

She thought that was particularly serious in a pandemic because others in her situation might decide to forgo the tests or the care because of the cost.

Pereira is planning on going to school to become a registered nurse and then staying here to work and raise her son. She said this shouldn’t happen to anyone and so she’s pushing to have things changed.

“I’m not fighting for myself; I don’t want anything from here. I’m just asking because my baby’s a citizen and I feel like he and every other baby in (our) situation needs the privilege of a citizen — that’s why I’m fighting. I don’t want anything for me,” she said.

Pereira was looking for help with her situation so she called her MLA, the NDP’s Meara Conway. Conway contacted the health minister’s office in February but only got a letter back from the minister detailing the policy on health cards.

On Thursday, Conway brought up Pereira and her son’s situation during Question Period and asked what the health minister would do about it.

“All I want is for this situation to be fixed for Ms. Pereira and for it never to happen to anyone again,” Conway said later.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. This is a Canadian citizen. This boy was born in Saskatchewan. I think of my son — both were born around the same time in the same hospital — and the only difference between them is who their mother is, and to discriminate against this baby based on that is just not right.”

Health Minister Paul Merriman said it’s a complex policy and he couldn’t go into specifics about Pereira’s case because of privacy concerns. He did say he’s going to have his officials look into it and see what they can do.

“My office will be reaching out to the family as well as the (Saskatchewan Health Authority) to be able to have a look and see, ‘Is there any options there?’ ” said Merriman.

Merriman said it’s a long-standing policy and he believes it’s similar to most other jurisdictions in Canada, but he said it will be looked at.

“We always look at all of our policies to see if they need to be updated. Sometimes they get brought to us that it’s not working in today’s society and we need to adapt our policies. We’re continuously doing that,” said Merriman.

Conway said while that has been changing in provinces like B.C. and Manitoba, it shouldn’t matter if others are the same — the policy should be changed.