Your chance to be heard on the future of health care

Hamilton and Halton Health Coalitions encourage everyone, 16 years-of-age and over, to participate in the May citizen referendum to stop the privatization of hospital services by the Ford government.

Brian Danko’s wife, June, was referred by her family doctor to the Hamilton Lung Cancer Diagnostic clinic by her family physician. The purpose was to diagnose a nodule on her upper lung.

June lives in Halton Region which falls just outside the general scope of Hamilton General Hospital.

Danko was contacted by personnel from the CT Diagnostic clinic at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (OMTH) and told that in order for the Hamilton specialist to receive the x-rays in a timely manner he needed to sign up with PocketHealth.

The for-profit company site states that they provide patients quick access to view MRI scans, X-rays, ultrasounds and other medical imaging on any device. The service also let’s patients compare reports to track changes over time.

Patient pricing is $10/month – cancel any time – or a yearly fee of $49.00. There is also a range of options for health care providers to choose from.

Instead, Danko followed up with a phone call to OMTH and was told that June did not need to register with PocketHealth. That employee told Danko that the x-ray images could be faxed to the doctor at Hamilton General – at no cost.

At that point Danko phoned his wife’s doctor and was told they had the x-rays. So, he asked the office staff to fax the x-rays to Hamilton General.

When contacted for a response, Laura Zilke, Manager of Communication and Public Affairs for Halton Healthcare said, “At Halton Healthcare our Diagnostic Imaging team offers several options to patients to share their imaging records. This includes direct patient access by registering with PocketHealth or from healthcare provider to healthcare provider.”

“Alternatively, patients can share their healthcare provider’s name and fax number or email address to our Diagnostic Imaging staff and they will coordinate the release of the imaging study to the provider as requested. There is no cost for this,” added Zilke.

Zilke said that Halton Health care regrets if there was a miscommunication and that they are always happy to work with patients individually if further assistance or another option is needed.

When PocketHealth continued to appeal to Danko to complete the request he had started by paying the fee, he replied, “Since Doug Ford said nobody would have to pay for medical services in Ontario, you should ask him to pay rather than having us use our credit card.”

The PocketHealth website claims the corporation is patient-centric and that they believe the easiest way for a health record to get to where it needs to go is to give it directly to the patient who can then share it as they see fit.

Apparently, that eliminates the complexity of having to connect hundreds of different health care providers and helps patients become active, engaged participants in their care.

Rishi Nayyar, Co-Founder and CEO of PocketHealth responded via email to say, “Accessing records through PocketHealth is always optional. If the patient prefers not to use PocketHealth, they can get their records by visiting the hospital’s Health Records department.”

Nayyar explained that through PocketHealth, OTMH is also able to securely share a patient’s imaging with another hospital site or with the patient’s doctor at no cost to the patient for this process and without additional registration.

He added that PocketHealth has financial assistance and waives 100 per cent of the fees for patients needing financial aid so access to medical imaging records is always available.

Danko insists, “This is just another case of our health system being compromised by the Ford government.”

Hamilton Health Coalition and Ontario Health Coalition Halton encourage everyone, 16 years-of-age and over, to participate in the May citizen referendum to stop the privatization of hospital services.

Vote in person May 26 and 27 or online here.

This article was originally published in The Hamilton Spectator

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