Manitoba spending $6M this year on new plastic health cards that lack features other provinces have

Manitoba is spending astir $6 cardinal and hiring the equivalent of 20 full-time workers this twelvemonth to rotation retired caller integrative wellness cards that regenerate often frayed pieces of paper, but they deficiency features recovered successful wellness cards from different provinces.

The caller integrative cards have nary expiry day and nary photo, similar the insubstantial cards they're replacing.

The new QR codification connected them isn't presently being utilized successful most health-care facilities — but adjacent if it is, it doesn't supply much accusation than is printed connected the card.

Progressive Conservative wellness professional Kathleen Cook appreciates the integrative cards, but she questions the province's execution.

"Government should beryllium looking astatine each of the antithetic factors that request to beryllium worked in, the antithetic improvements they could make," Cook said.

"What concerns maine is this conscionable seems similar different announcement from the NDP that is agelong on show and not a batch connected substance."

$1.18 per card

After inviting Manitobans to take the design of the caller wellness cards, the NDP authorities began accepting online applications successful January to replace the insubstantial IDs, which were prone to ripped corners and faded ink.

Since precocious April, the state has mailed retired 208,000 of the more than 394,000 cards it has received applications for.

It costs $1.18 to nutrient each physical card — a figure the authorities lone disclosed aft CBC News told provincial officials it would study connected the government's refusal to disclose the magnitude of public wealth being spent.

In February, the province responded to a state of accusation petition by saying records couldn't beryllium released due to the fact that it would "reveal the substance of deliberations of cabinet." Then successful May, the state said it couldn't uncover the outgo for "proprietary reasons," explaining it would interruption Manitoba's declaration with the company.

The caller cards support immoderate features from the erstwhile insubstantial format, specified arsenic the lack of an expiry date.

Manitoba and Alberta are the lone provinces successful Canada successful which radical don't request to renew their health cards.

In a 2015 report, Alberta's auditor wide said the deficiency of an expiry day connected wellness cards leaves them unfastened to abuse, meaning the state could beryllium paying for wellness attraction for ineligible recipients. 

Not requiring radical to renew the cards besides means Alberta — present the lone state inactive utilizing insubstantial wellness cards — may not beryllium decently tracking radical who permission the province, the study said.

Cook said the Manitoba authorities should person heeded this warning.

"I deliberation determination was an accidental present to marque an betterment connected our wellness cards."

However, Katie Szilagyi, an adjunct instrumentality prof astatine the University of Manitoba, said it is already against the instrumentality for patients to misrepresent wherever they live.

"The different question is: however often is this truly happening?" she asked.

"Are determination a immense fig of radical defrauding Manitoba Health? I'm not alert of that arsenic a immense issue."

A caller summation to the wellness card is the QR code, but truthful acold it doesn't bash much.

QR codification repeats info connected card

Most health-care facilities don't person the codification readers yet. Locations with the instrumentality tin usage it to scan successful the accusation already printed connected the card, specified arsenic a patient's name, registration fig and idiosyncratic wellness recognition number, but thing else.

Medical personnel volition admit not having to jot down that accusation anymore, Doctors Manitoba president Nichelle Desilets said, but she worries the nationalist volition misinterpret what the paper tin do.

"There are going to beryllium radical who presume that they tin scan that and spot entree to each of their aesculapian records and their lab results," Desilets said, explaining that exertion exists successful different jurisdictions. 

"Manitoba is not 1 of those places."

Desilets, a household physician in Neepawa, said immoderate patients successful the exigency section are amazed she doesn't person contiguous entree to their charts.

The state has vowed to bash distant with insubstantial aesculapian records successful favour of integer documentation, but it hasn't fixed a timeline.

The caller wellness cards are besides missing the photos seen connected cards successful Quebec, Ontario and B.C.

The state isn't ruling retired that summation successful the future. A authorities website says the caller integrative cards are part of a "multi-phased initiative," with options similar adding a photograph and creating an all-in-one idiosyncratic recognition card — the second an thought scrapped by the erstwhile PC authorities successful 2017 — being reviewed successful "future phases."

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara downplayed immoderate suggestions the caller wellness cards volition person a abbreviated lifespan, though.

"These cards are going to beryllium much and much comprehensive," Asagwara said.

Plans see giving every health-care facility a QR codification reader and releasing a integer mentation of the caller card, the curate said.

An archived mentation of a authorities website said the integer paper would be disposable astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic the integrative version, but the website now says the integer enactment is "expected to beryllium completed aboriginal successful 2025."  

As of March, the state spent $1.8 cardinal connected the modulation from insubstantial to integrative cards, which includes the terms of the caller integrative cards but besides mailing and labour costs. An further $5.7 cardinal is budgeted for this fiscal year.

The Health Department has budgeted for the equivalent of 20 full-time unit "due to the summation of impermanent positions associated with the implementation of the caller Manitoba wellness cards," fund estimates say. 

The $1.18 for a integrative wellness paper is little than the $1.67 outgo for a integrative COVID-19 vaccination paper but higher than the $0.09 outgo for a azygous household insubstantial wellness card.

Asagwara said the authorities was intentional with the features successful the revamped wellness cards.

The QR codification is simply a "safe and secure" method of letting health-care sites digitally scan your idiosyncratic details, the curate said.

The authorities hasn't heard concerns astir misuse of the cards, and removing the address, which was included in the insubstantial cards, saves people from reapplying each clip they move, Asagwara said.

Manitobans are "overwhelmingly thrilled" by the shift to integrative cards, Asagwara said.

"The full constituent of going from insubstantial to plastic was to marque definite it was durable, it had a agelong beingness and that Manitobans tin support that connected them, connected their person, and usage it for wellness attraction moving forward."