Universal Healthcare: a right or a privilege?

I’ve been in Canada for close to 4 years now and I know that the healthcare sector is far from perfect. However, there’s a wide gap between what I had before and what is obtainable here. I’m fortunate to be in a Province where you can access healthcare almost as soon as you start living here. Some other provinces are not that generous and would want you to stay for a certain number of months before you can be given a health card.

Few notes:

There are family clinics all over the city. If you need to see a doctor for everyday issues, they are available everywhere. To see a doctor, it’s better to book an appointment so that you won’t spend 2 hours in the waiting room as a walk-in patient.

Seeing the doctor is the easy part, if you need any medication, you have two options.

• Pay out of pocket
• Use health insurance if you have. Most employers provide a form of insurance for their staff. The insurance may not cover the costs of your medication fully, but at least it can be subsidized. If you and your spouse both have insurance, you may end up not paying anything at all.

Annual check ups, blood tests, ultrasound, mammograms, x-rays etc. are all covered by the Provincial government, so you don’t have to pay for them. I had a baby and didn’t pay any hospital bill, well, except parking fees. 😊

Emergency Room: I actually pray not to go to ER. If you are not really sure that your illness is an emergency, please just wait and go to a family clinic. Wait times at the ER are super crazy. You can wait for 3-5 hours before being attended to, simply because the priority is actually on those who need urgent attention.

Specialists: The family doctors can refer one to see a specialist, depending on how urgent the issue is, wait times can be as early as one week after referral to about 3 months or even more.

The system needs a lot of improvement, more family clinics, more specialists, more hospitals etc. I’m not a medical expert, but I’m sure there’s still a lot to be done.

Do you have any negative or positive experience? Let’s read from you. Share your experience in the comments.

Credit, Credit, Credit

Welcome to Canada.

If you were someone like me who grew up in a developing country, having a credit history will probably be a strange phenomenon to you. Growing up, access to loans or credit was next to impossible and for a lot of people, having access to personal funds meant the ability to buy a house, a car and pretty much everything else. When I got to Canada, I learnt that a good credit history gives you access to loans, lines of credit, car loans, mortgages, etc.

Where do you start?

As soon as you arrive in Canada, go to a bank and open a bank account. You don’t need to have any money to save in the bank. Many banks have various offers for new immigrants. When opening a bank account, apply for a credit card too. Most banks will give you a credit card as soon as you arrive. If you go to a bank and they decline your credit card application, go to another bank until you get a credit card.

A credit card is like a loan, so for example if you have a credit card of $1,000, it means you can use the money to buy whatever you need. You can spend the whole amount and pay back without interest if you pay back within 21 days. If you don’t pay back the money within 21 days, you start paying interest on the amount spent. You have a minimum payment you can pay every month; however, the rule of thumb is this: ALWAYS PAY EVERYTHING BACK WITHIN 21 DAYS. If you pay back any amount spent within the approved period, your credit score improves because it shows that you can be trusted to pay back any debt you owe. This is the most important reason for you to always pay back your credit card debt. Furthermore, the interest rates on credit cards are quite high. You can have a credit card with an interest rate as high as 21% p.a.

Credit History – what does it mean?

A credit history is a record of how well or bad you have been meeting your loan obligations. If you have a credit card, a line of credit, a mortgage etc.; you have a credit history. There are Credit Reporting companies who have access to your data as soon as you get your first loan. They typically match your name, Social Insurance Number, date of birth, address and other details every time you apply for a loan. You are then assigned a credit score based on how you meet your payment obligations.

If you have made the mistake of having a high credit card balance i.e, owing a lot, you can approach your bank for a line of credit. A line of credit is a loan with a much lower interest rate. If approved, use the loan to pay off the credit card debt and then make plans on how to pay off the loan.

At some point, you will need to buy a house and will need a mortgage, or you may even need a car loan, if you have a good credit history, it will be easier for you to get approval for the loans. This society is built on trust, so try and be a person that can be trusted.

Final word: Read the fine prints (terms and conditions) of any loan or credit card offers. It will help you to understand how things work and help you in making payment plans.

Good luck.