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The aunt and uncle of a 16-year-old boy with Down Syndrome needed help finding the boy a place to live after his mother died of cancer. They were concerned that they would not be able to care for him because they lived 270 kilometres away, both worked odd hours, and, due to their age, wouldn’t be able to look after him on a long-term basis.

A student from outside of Canada, who was married to a Canadian citizen, chose to enter the country on an international student visa because it would be processed faster than her spousal visa.

A mother complained to the Ombudsman after she was forced to pay $7,000 for a spot for her adult daughter in a residential treatment program for women with substance abuse issues.

An inmate had been waiting for months to have a wisdom tooth extracted and was in severe pain, to the point where he had fainted and had to be sent to hospital.

An inmate was told after a colonoscopy that he likely had bowel cancer and would need surgery immediately – within a week. However, the jail’s doctor told him the facility had no paperwork from the specialist, and it would be up to four weeks before he could even get an appointment for surgery.

After a woman was denied funding for a drug to treat neuropathic pain, her husband came to the Ombudsman for help. The woman has a rare neurological disease and her condition, which is considered palliative, means she has considerable muscle and nerve pain. One of the drugs that helped her pain, Sativex, was only approved for patients with multiple sclerosis, or palliative cancer patients with refractory pain.  

A 62-year-old woman with Crohn’s disease required infusions every eight weeks at a cost of $4,542.76 per treatment. The woman’s private insurance covered 80% of the costs, while the Trillium Drug Program reimbursed her for the remainder, but she was reaching the lifetime maximum for her private insurance coverage and it was about to end.

A woman who was experiencing a third occurrence of HER2-positive breast cancer was denied funding by the Ministry for the chemotherapy drug Kadcyla, although it was prescribed by her oncologist.

After the removal of a benign brain tumour, a woman in her 20s suffered a stroke that left her unsteady on her feet, needing assistance to use the bathroom, and with speech difficulties. She had to be hospitalized several times and was placed in the complex care unit of a local hospital for four months.

A mother was concerned about the lack of support and funding for her 19-year-old son, who has autism and aggressive behavioural issues. He had recently been taken to hospital by police after an incident when he became agitated and violent.

A senior contacted our Office after restrictions were placed on his visits with his wife at her long-term care home, after he raised concerns with a nurse about his wife’s care.

A mother who had been commuting two hours every day to attend classes at an Everest College campus applied for funding to resume her studies elsewhere after the college closed.

A mother whose son has a developmental disability and is medically fragile complained that her son’s medication costs were no longer being covered since he had been placed in a group home funded by the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

A PhD student who was given no opportunity to repeat his final exam when he failed on his first try after 16 months of course work complained to our Office that he had hit a dead end in the university’s appeal process.

After the Trillium Drug Program denied a woman drug benefits that she had previously received, our staff raised the case with a senior analyst at the Ministry, who found the information she had submitted about her private insurer’s drug coverage had been inconsistent.

A college student who was taking “compressed” courses over the summer questioned why she didn’t qualify for full-time OSAP funding, as her college had previously determined that her compressed course load made her eligible.

A woman on a waiting list for a popular, limited-enrolment college program called our Office for help when she could not get any information from the college about whether she had been accepted.

A man whose home and important documents were destroyed by fire complained that he was having trouble renewing his Ontario health card.

A woman complained to our Office on behalf of her 34-year-old daughter, who requires a specially-made drug at a cost of $200 per month.

A student complained that he had failed a course due to false information provided to his professor by a teaching assistant.