Ontario Gov't Decides To End SRS Payments
By Jeff Harder Ottawa Sun
Contributed by Anne Marie Pemberton
Toronto
October 3, 1998
No more sex changes please,
we're Ontarian.
The province's Conservative government will
no longer fund high-cost sex change
operations, sources told the Saturday Sun.
"We feel it is not a medically necessary
operation and public tax dollars could be
better spent elsewhere," a senior government
official said. "The money will now be applied to cardiac
surgery. The changed has been instituted
(yesterday)."
In the 1997-98 budget year, taxpayers were
billed $122,000 for eight sex changes. The
public purse has funded 48 of the procedures
in the last six years.
Conservative MPPs Marcel Beaubien and
Frank Sheehan had been lobbying for an end to
public funding for "lifestyle" operations.
"I think we have a lot more pressing
priorities," Beaubien said at a 1997 committee
meeting that reviewed health spending.
"If I had a choice between sex changes and
heart surgery, I think the money should go to
heart surgery," Sheehan added.
Ontario's former NDP government defended
subsidized sex change operations and refused
to delist the service.
Health Minister Elizabeth Witmer recently
delisted testicular implants, wart removals and
flu vaccines. The cost-cutting moves will save
$50 million a year.
Canada's Armed Forces came under heavy
public fire in September after military doctors
agreed to cover the $30,000 cost of a sex
change for a male soldier. Defence Minister
Art Eggleton defended the man's right to apply
for the operation.
"If a person has a right to consideration under
a provincial plan, they have a right to
consideration under our plan," Eggleton said.
In Ontario, sex changes were granted only
after Toronto's Clark Institute completed a
psychological review. Then, the patients were
sent to American or English hospitals for the
necessary alterations.
|