Law students denounce the fate of the most disadvantaged by the health system

News 30 July, 2017

QMI agency

Sunday, 30 July, 2017 15:09

UPDATE
Sunday, 30 July, 2017 15:17

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The legal Clinic travelling, composed of law students from four universities in quebec and working in particular with the homeless, denounces the fate of the most vulnerable members of society through the health system.

Sunday, in a press release, the Clinic highlighted the case of an aboriginal woman, Kimberly Gloade, who, in 2016, is dead a month after she was refused medical care because she did not have her health insurance card Quebec “or 1400 $, as requested by the hospital to be treated”.

“It is a common problem for people in situation of homelessness, explained the spokesman of the CJI, Frederick Comeau. Each month, the CJI works with people who do not have their insurance card and must make administrative procedures more complicated to hope to receive a card in order to be cured.”

Mr. Comeau believes that we must address urgently this injustice.

The legal Clinic travelling also denounces the fact that “people experiencing homelessness are forced by the RAMQ to renew their health insurance card every year, because they are unable to provide a residential address, while the rest of the quebec population gets a renewal whose validity extends over a period of four years, or even eight”.

According to the Clinic, “it is a practice to be unfair and discriminatory towards people in a situation of homelessness, which not only complicates their access to health care, a fundamental right of all Quebecers and [all] Quebec, but also puts their lives in danger, as we are reminded so tragically the case of Ms. Gloade”.

The members of the legal Clinic travelling are law students at UQAM, the Université de Montréal, McGill University and Université Laval, who work on a voluntary basis in concert with a dozen shelters and community organizations across Montreal and Quebec. They are supervised by law professors and lawyers who are members of the Barreau du Québec.