Federal government’s handful of health cut reversals won’t help most refugees: doctors

The federal government has reinstated full coverage for a handful of health-care services for refugees, but doctors say it’s not nearly enough. 

On May 1, Canada’s Interim Federal Health Program imposed a 30 per cent co-payment requirement for products and services ranging from wheelchairs to mental health counselling. 

More than a dozen medical, nursing, social work and refugee organizations, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association warned that refugees can’t afford those co-payments and their physical and mental health would suffer.

As of July 31, the government resumed paying the full cost of some supplies including home oxygen tanks, feeding pumps, sleep apnea monitors, ventilators and implantable hearing aids for children and teens.

It is also covering the cost of long-term care up to a maximum of about $1,700 per month.   

But Dr. Parisa Rezaiefar, physician lead of the Ottawa Newcomer Health Centre, says although the move will help some refugees, many more need dental care, eyeglasses, mental health counselling, wheelchairs, catheters and other health services not fully covered. 

“To me, it sounds like a very superficial approach by specific targeting of items that are, yes, of course, very significant, but they apply only to very few people who would need these items,” said Rezaiefar, who is also an associate professor at the University of Ottawa.

Rezaiefar said her patients are doing without essential health-care services because they can’t afford the 30 per cent co-payment. 

The Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP) also requires refugees and refugee claimants to pay $4 for every prescription — another cost Rezaiefar said many patients can’t cover. 

The program pays the full cost of hospital visits and doctor’s appointments. 

But Rezaiefar and other health-care providers say not covering the full cost of drugs and supplementary health services only leads to more expensive care in hospitals when patients’ conditions deteriorate.    

“(I have) newly arrived, government-assisted refugees who decline to see a dentist, despite the fact that they need multiple dental care procedures,” she said. 

“So we’re going to wait until they have complications, they have (an) abscess and then they end up in hospital.”

“It just makes no sense to me.”

Health insurance for refugees is provided by Medavie Blue Cross. According to the company’s insurance code guide, patients still need to pay 30 per cent of the cost of regular, non-implantable hearing aids, catheters, wheelchairs, canes and crutches. 

The guide also says that in-hospital physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy is fully covered. 

But Rezaiefar said that doesn’t help people who need those therapies and aren’t inpatients.

A spokesperson for the minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said the health services moved back from partial coverage to full coverage are “not a reversal of the measures IRCC introduced in May 2026.”

Taous Ait said the services were moved from the supplemental benefits category to the basic benefits category, which eliminated the 30 per cent co-pay.

Ait said the move is meant to align refugee health coverage with provincial and territorial health benefits.   

“This targeted adjustment affects a very small proportion of current IFHP beneficiaries and largely maintains the approximately $200 million in projected annual savings associated with the May 2026 program changes,” she said in an email on Friday. 

“Fewer than one per cent of the approximately 600,000 people currently eligible for IFHP coverage access these services.” 

Rezaiefar said doctors will continue their efforts to convince the federal government that cutting funding to the “most vulnerable people” is not the way to save taxpayer dollars, because refugees will become productive members of society if their health-care needs are met.    

“We’re blaming refugees and newcomers for our health-care system that is already struggling and we’re making health care more inequitable,” she said. 

“We’re not done advocating.”

—With files from David Baxter in Ottawa

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 7, 2026.

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

By Nicole Ireland | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.