I wonder if that's the philosophy of governments and health "care" as we age out and hopefully cascade into our graves or incinerators?
Don't get me wrong as I do have a medical team that is par excellence when so many don't. At last count, there were seven all told doing their very best to keep me upright.
But the peripherals are absolutely maddening. An essential drug was unfunded out of the blue eleven days ago by the lords of the health care system. We fought for the coverage nearly a year ago and won. Then it was yanked suddenly with no warning. My clinician was off on hols as was my doctor and the pharmacy was apologetic and said nothing could be done but I could pay for it out of pocket. Knowing how bureaucracy works, I declined as I knew it would be the nail in my coffin and my pocket as it would never get funded again. So I hung on with a few scattered pain relievers until the team got back. It was all sorted and for a year's coverage. How maddeningly unnecessary to put an old woman into such stress.
Secondly there was a $400 supplement allocated to seniors in the province, I applied in January and helped others with the complicated application which involved detailed descriptions of out of pocket medical expenses AND verification of actual addresses via copy of electricity bills. No on line apps permitted and a CHEQUE would be issued, no auto deposit, so copy of a cheque to be sent with the app. Can you believe this absolute nonsense in the year of Our Lord 2025?
So I mailed off a wad of these apps having scanned all the bits and pieces of paper that had to accompany them. This pittance of $400 was used up if I was being paid for services to others in this complicated process.
And here we are, July 2025 and a scattered few have received their cheques and the rest of us are left stewing, all old in various stages of decrepitude. Are the almighty "they" hoping we'll toss off this mortal coil before the cheques (maybe they're handwritten, whut?) are issued.
More work: I sent an email off to our member of parliament (I know him) with a request to find out what had happened in this sporadic issue of cheques to some and none to the majority of us?
Crickets.
All part of a senior's existence, fighting for the scraps, fighting for what's fair and just.
And hoping there's a sliver of energy left over to suck a bit of joy out of the remains of the day.
Oh, my, your. small pittance sounds awfully hard to achieve. I wish you luck, but it may be awhile. Here, in the US, it took decades to get the federal government to understand that not allowing teachers to draw a full social security payment was wrong. Ronald Reagan, the President at the time of the law, said those who drew a pension from a government agency should not get social security. And yet, military personnel, like my husband, got social security right along with his military pension. Finally, as his last act, President Biden reversed that rule and let us even have a one-year retroactive payment. It was a nice chunk of money and now my social security payment is a few hundred more each month. Hopefully, your payment will also make its way to you, and soon.
ReplyDeleteI heard that some disability welfare recipients received $200 from the Federal Government, and the Alberta government cut their state allowance by $200.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a terrible system and I could be snarky and say "wait until they are old and need help", but many of your politicians are already old and far too rich to ever suffer as normal people do. I'd like to smack them all until their heads spin. I don't know much about out of pocket expenses, I take only three prescribed medications per day and pay out $21 per month.
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