Manitoba woman says she's in 'dire' situation as year-long wait for new health card drags on
CBC
A Manitoba woman who applied for a new health card after moving back to the province just over a year ago says she doesn't have the time or money to keep waiting.
Marjorie Wiebe, 42, applied for a Manitoba health card in December 2022 after moving back to her home province from Alberta two months earlier.
She's still waiting for it to arrive, she said.
Wiebe, who now lives in Pinawa — a small town about 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg — says when she applied over a year ago, she was told there would be a four- to six-week wait for her health card. She phoned for answers after that time had passed.
"I was basically told that there are a lot of people [waiting] right now, and that I just need to wait," she told CBC News Wednesday.
A Manitoba Health card is what confirms a resident's eligibility for health benefits — something that's important to Wiebe.
She knew before moving back to Manitoba that her gallbladder would eventually need to be removed, as it over-produces bile.
But her medical condition "wasn't as dire as it is now," she said, as she now has an extremely swollen gallbladder.
"The pain doesn't go away. I still have to get up and work," she said.
"I'm in a position where this could be potentially life-threatening, so I do feel like there should be resources for people like that."
There were 9,180 people waiting for their health card applications to be processed as of Jan. 19, a provincial spokesperson told CBC News in an emailed statement Wednesday — a 62 per cent drop from the waitlist of nearly 25,000 last November.
"The department has made great efforts to reduce the processing times for health cards and continues to work as quickly as possible to reduce the backlog," the spokesperson said.
Once received, health coverage will be backdated to an applicant's date of arrival in Manitoba or the date of their eligible legal status in the country, according to the spokesperson.
Under the federal Canada Health Act, the waiting period to get insured health services for people who move from one province to another cannot be more than three months.
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