December 31, 2015
31 December 2015
In need of a space
A primary school student with special needs was put on a waiting list for placement in a support program for children with autism. The boy's mother was told that a spot was unlikely to become available soon. Concerned that her child's needs were not being met, she escalated her concerns with the school board and then called our Office.
November 30, 2015
30 November 2015
Improving busing services
The mother of a kindergartner with special needs contacted the Office with concerns about busing services.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
A sign of relief
A mother was concerned about the lack of support and funding for her 19-year-old son, who has autism and aggressive behavioural issues. He had recently been taken to hospital by police after an incident when he became agitated and violent.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Burden of proof
A woman turned to the Ombudsman for help when she had trouble renewing her Ontario Health Insurance Plan coverage. She had been living with friends and was struggling to provide proof that she was an Ontario resident so she could renew her OHIP card before it expired on September 30.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Electrifying error
A woman was frustrated and confused by a dramatic increase in her electricity bills after her meter was changed in August 2013 – from $244 that July, to $403 in August, and up to $1,700 in January 2014.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Overbill overkill
A farmer was concerned about the high electricity bills he received for the first six months of 2014, even though his corn dryer – the machine on his farm using the highest amount of electricity – wasn’t in use. His bills were close to $9,000, including $843 in delivery charges on $112 worth of electricity.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Handling with care
The aunt and uncle of a 16-year-old boy with Down Syndrome needed help finding the boy a place to live after his mother died of cancer. They were concerned that they would not be able to care for him because they lived 270 kilometres away, both worked odd hours, and, due to their age, wouldn’t be able to look after him on a long-term basis.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Pearly rights
A woman whose teeth had been damaged as a result of physical abuse by her partner years earlier contacted the Ombudsman for help in obtaining funds to have them fixed.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Insuring a house is in order
Three months after his partner died, a widower contacted us because he had not received the coroner’s report, despite writing the local coroner’s office twice. His partner had died of what appeared to be a drug overdose and he needed the coroner’s report to obtain life insurance payments.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Wrong, wrong, wrong
A woman complained to the Ombudsman in May 2013 that her ex-husband owed $46,000 in spousal support and the FRO was not enforcing a court order that he pay it.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Labour pain
A woman came to us after she could not reach her ODSP case worker for two months. The woman was receiving Employment Insurance benefits of $295 per week, which were deducted from her monthly ODSP cheque of $1,842, but they had ended two months earlier. Despite this, the ODSP continued to take deductions from her cheque.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Return to sender, address unknown
A man contacted our Office in frustration when the Ministry repeatedly sent mail to his address for a former tenant. He had returned the envelopes several times with a note stating “this person does not reside at this address,” but the Ministry mail did not stop.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Good medicine
A woman who was experiencing a third occurrence of HER2-positive breast cancer was denied funding by the Ministry for the chemotherapy drug Kadcyla, although it was prescribed by her oncologist. The Ministry would fund the drug for women experiencing a second occurrence of the disease, but not a third – despite scientific evidence that women with third and even fourth occurrences did benefit from the drug.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Lost in the mail
A 62-year-old woman with Crohn’s disease required infusions every eight weeks at a cost of $4,542.76 per treatment. The woman’s private insurance covered 80% of the costs, while the Trillium Drug Program reimbursed her for the remainder, but she was reaching the lifetime maximum for her private insurance coverage and it was about to end.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Failure to communicate
After the removal of a benign brain tumour, a woman in her 20s suffered a stroke that left her unsteady on her feet, needing assistance to use the bathroom, and with speech difficulties. She had to be hospitalized several times and was placed in the complex care unit of a local hospital for four months.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
No time to lose
An inmate was told after a colonoscopy that he likely had bowel cancer and would need surgery immediately – within a week. However, the jail’s doctor told him the facility had no paperwork from the specialist, and it would be up to four weeks before he could even get an appointment for surgery.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Tuition restitution
A student from outside of Canada, who was married to a Canadian citizen, chose to enter the country on an international student visa because it would be processed faster than her spousal visa.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Past the due date
The mother of a young man with significant mental health problems came to the Ombudsman because her son, who was receiving ODSP benefits, had been threatened with eviction from his group home because his rent had not been paid via ODSP.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Crisis of care
The family of a 69-year-old woman with developmental disabilities contacted the Ombudsman because they could no longer care for her. She was in hospital after she was assaulted at her day program, but would have nowhere to live after she was discharged.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Misplaced identity
A new driver complained to our Office after waiting six months for his permanent driver’s licence. He had passed the written test and turned over his Ontario-issued government photo ID to ServiceOntario, expecting a replacement card in the mail, but he never received it.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
New drug, new hope
After a woman was denied funding for a drug to treat neuropathic pain, her husband came to the Ombudsman for help. The woman has a rare neurological disease and her condition, which is considered palliative, means she has considerable muscle and nerve pain. One of the drugs that helped her pain, Sativex, was only approved for patients with multiple sclerosis, or palliative cancer patients with refractory pain.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Excruciating wait
An inmate had been waiting for months to have a wisdom tooth extracted and was in severe pain, to the point where he had fainted and had to be sent to hospital.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Settling an account
A man contacted our Office because he suspected the Family Responsibility Office had miscalculated the amount he owed for child and spousal support by almost $3,800. He had written the FRO three times in the past 18 months, but it did not acknowledge his letters or adjust his account.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Your call is important
A 65-year-old man had his driver’s licence suspended in May 2014 after hospital staff reported to the Ministry of Transportation that he had suffered a fall that knocked him unconscious. After this incident, the man provided the Ministry with letters from three different doctors confirming he was in good health, but two months later, his licence was still suspended.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Going the distance
The owner of a home for adults with mental health issues contacted the Ombudsman, frustrated that he couldn’t get ODSP or Developmental Services Ontario (DSO) to provide funding to take one of his residents to her cancer treatments.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
A matter of time
After signing up for “Back on Track,” a remedial program for people convicted of impaired driving, a man phoned the program to book a one-hour assessment interview. He was given the choice of several time slots. He arrived at 3:30 on the appointed day, believing he was half an hour early for the 4 p.m. slot. Instead, he was told the interview had actually been booked for 3 p.m.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Way out west
A single mother complained to the Ombudsman that she hadn’t received child support payments in six months, despite her daughter, a post-secondary student, still living at home. The father lived in B.C., and as long as the daughter attended school and lived with her mother, he was required to pay monthly support payments.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Rehab reset
A mother complained to the Ombudsman after she was forced to pay $7,000 for a spot for her adult daughter in a residential treatment program for women with substance abuse issues.
July 28, 2015
28 July 2015
Bullied and baffled
A mother contacted us in frustration because she couldn’t get help for her nine-year-old daughter, who had been severely bullied and injured at school, and was expressing thoughts of self-harm.