New permanent residents to Ontario must wait three months before becoming eligible for publicly covered health care through the Ontario Health Insurance Program (OHIP). As a result, many new permanent residents are at risk of a variety of negative health impacts. Not all provinces in Canada require a three-month wait to access health care. This policy builds unnecessary inequity into our universal health care system.
This think piece presents a framework that can help researchers, service providers, and policy makers to better understand the experiences of new permanent residents in the three-month wait and the potential health outcomes that result from delayed care.