Ontario Hansard - 13-April-2005

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): I rise today to draw the attention of the House to a problem facing many of my constituents. As I've mentioned before, doctor shortages are a serious problem in the riding of Haliburton-Victoria-Brock. One of the problems that residents face when doctors retire or close their practices is what happens to the medical records of their patients and how expensive it is for patients to retrieve those records when they do finally find a new doctor.
In Minden, one of the doctors recently retired, and his patients have had to find new physicians in Bancroft and Bracebridge. When they try to have their medical records transferred, they find there's a huge cost associated with this.

This is something that Georgina Parkes found out. She had to pay $122 to have her 50-page file transferred. That is $2.40 per page. Patrick Scadden, another of my constituents, found out that it's going to cost him $175 to transfer his records.

Haliburton county has the second-lowest average income in the province. A lot of seniors live in my riding. This is a significant cost for Gillian Frudenberg and other seniors to bear.
It's also hard for families. Lisa Farr has been told that it will cost $300 to transfer the files for her family.

All of these people have had to find doctors outside of their communities, and in many ways, they are the lucky ones. But what is going to happen when Minden finally gets another doctor -- and they will -- and they are able to go to a doctor in their own community? Will they be hit with this charge again?
I would ask the minister to look into this matter on behalf of the many people across the province who cannot afford this extra expense.

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