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PR applications and babies

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Recently, an immigrant mother with a Canadian citizen husband gave birth in a hotel because she had no medical insurance.

She had no medical insurance because of the lengthy delays in getting her approval done and her health coverage subsequently done. The choices faced by this couple were the same as ours, when we began this same process. They seemed to have had less information than we did on how long the whole thing would take, and so made a different decision:

1. Give birth without health insurance (this couple's choice)

2. Delay birth until the end of the process was in sight (our choice)

3. Give birth in the mother's home country (unlikely in both cases due to lack of income in those countries)

Thanks to health insurance law in Canada, it's actually impossible to obtain non-governmental health coverage that covers maternity costs. For the life of me I can't figure out why that should be so, but there it is. Between the decision to take an outrageously long period to acknowledge the spouse of Canadian citizens on the one side, and the bizarre elimination of private health insurance, married couples in Canada are delaying the birth of children when they can, and giving birth in hotel bathtubs where they can't.