Scarborough clinic offers healthcare to uninsured new Canadians

TORONTO- A clinic in Scarborough offers much needed health care to uninsured immigrants.

The Community Volunteer Clinic was co-founded by Dr. Paul Caulford in 1999 and treats uninsured new Canadians such as refugees, asylum seekers, migrant workers and people fleeing conflict zones. The clinic is made up of volunteer physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners and other health providers. The clinic is the first of its kind in Ontario.

“We saw these cases coming across our desk of uninsured often young people, in Canada living, often working in our community who were in this precarious health status situation and didn’t have access to OHIP or interim federal healthcare for a variety of reasons and were suffering very severe consequences because of these access inequities to health care. So we got together, we planned, we put together a quick plan and started working out of a church basement,” said Caulford.

Now the clinic operates out of a doctor’s office two nights a week and sees anywhere from 20 to 40 patients over the course of three hours. Caulford said that over the last three years patient numbers have gone up by 300 per cent.

“We have made the decision now to build a new centre that will be sustainable beyond our time and will be invitational to the new young physicians and other healthcare related disciplines; nurses, midwives, nurse practitioners,” Caulford said.

Caulford said that each patient has a story and that each story is compelling and that is what drives him to continue volunteering his time.

One of his patients, Krasni Biutesta, was shot in the head several years ago and came to Canada because her life was being threatened. The shooting left her with disabilities.

Once in Canada she entered into an abusive relationship and suffered a shoulder injury that causes it to repeatedly dislocate. Krasni had been seeing an orthopedic surgeon to repair her shoulder but once she lost her medical insurance she was not able to go through with the surgery. Caulford is hoping to get a brace built for her that will keep the shoulder immobilized for the time being.

“Dr. Caulford, he’s amazing, my angelm” Biutesta said. “God bless my doctor.”