Canadian’s Wife Without Medicare Has Baby in Hotel Room

Here’s the story of an uncanny similarity between the birth of five-month-old Baby Ziggy and that of Baby Christ, 2000 years ago. A Scottish woman, who could not get provincial health insurance in Vancouver, despite being married to a Canadian man, gave birth in the bathtub of a hotel room. She was without health insurance – Medicare. She also had no access to pain medication while birthing, reports CBC News.

The hotel was located right across the street from a Vancouver hospital, just in case things went horribly wrong.

A childbirth that happened in a stable, to a couple steeped in poverty, 2000 years ago, can be glorified, but certainly not this one - in a modern, first world state of the 21st century with all its economic and technological accomplishments!

This incident makes Canada's structure of health care stand out like a sore thumb.

The new mother, Lynne Aitchison, worked as a firefighter in Scotland. After her wedding to Canadian citizen Armstrong, she applied to the immigration authorities for permanent residency status in her husband's country.

She was in an early stage of pregnancy when she had applied. She had also applied for B.C. medical coverage because her travel health insurance had expired.

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However, bureaucratic red tape worked wonders and her application remained unopened in a pile of thousands of others.

Also, when she reminded the authorities of her status (pregnancy), she was told she couldn’t have any medical coverage because the Federal Immigration Department wouldn’t issue her a letter verifying it.

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A normal hospital birth in Canada, without Medicare, costs $10,000. So, Lynne and her husband decided to have the baby on their own.



Source-Medindia