I am a Canadian citizen, can my wife get any healthcare in Canada since she is not a citizen of there?

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For your information, our (Canadian) national health insurance program is designed to ensure that all residents of Canada have access to medically necessary hospital and physician care on a prepaid basis. Residence in a province or territory is the basic requirement for insured health care coverage. The Canada Health Act defines a resident of a province or territory as:

"a person lawfully entitled to be or to remain in Canada who makes his home and is ordinarily present in the province, but does not include a tourist, a transient or a visitor to the province".

Each province and territory is responsible for determining its own minimum residence requirements with regard to an individual's eligibility for benefits under its health insurance plan. The Canada Health Act gives no guidance on such minimum residence requirements beyond an initial three-month waiting period to establish eligibility for and entitlement to insured health services. Provinces may require minimum residence annually in the province, and evidence of intention of returning to the province for that minimum residence period each year.

Therefore, neither you nor your wife is eligible for free healthcare benefits.

Check out the link below if you need more information regarding Canada Health Care System. Hope that helps.

http://www.img-canada.ca/en/can-hc-system/prov-terr-hc-systems.html

SereneSoul

Dental is not covered by Canadian Health Care. And unless you are a Permanent Resident or a Canadian Citizen you do not qualify to receive free medical care in Canada. Dental work is expensive anywhere you go because its private practice. Hope this helps.

The services of a dentist have never been covered by our health care system so your problem is really a non issue. You will just have to fork over your money for her to see a dentist there.

short shrimp

From what you describe, you are not entitled to health care here in Canada. You are not a resident, and you do not pay canadian income tax.

And besides, dental isn't covered anyways. We all pay through the teeth for dental. ;)

Dental is something that is covered under group benefits through your employer, if they even have benefits.

Leon

There are two requirements to get health care:

1. You would have to sponsor your wife to become a permanent resident in Canada

and

2. You and your wife would have to be living in Canada

However, healthcare in Canada doesn't cover dental. You would need a supplemental insurance to cover that which most employers offer or you can buy for not too much money.

Dangermanmi6

You may return to Canada and take up residency and after a qualifying period you would have access to medical care and in some instances dental care if it is done in a hospital and your doctor has prescribed the treatment (wisdom tooth, reconstructive dentistry after an accident) BUT there are a lot of hoops to be jumped through before dental care is performed in a hospital.

Your partner on the other hand must immigrate to Canada she won't have an automatic right of return as you do. Being married that will grease the wheels a bit but there are hoops that need to be jumped through here too. Once accepted as a permanent resident then the clock starts on her qualifying period for health care.

Lastly the system is tax payer funded it isn't free and I really don't like the idea of people being Canadian when it suits them. I left one country and became a citizen of Canada and even though my old country has better health care than Canada I don't pay taxes there anymore so I wouldn't expect them to look after me except if it was a dire emergency when I was over there on holidays.

Melanie B

If you don't live in Canada you cannot take advantage of our universal healthcare system. Also dental is not included so you would have to pay out of pocket anyway.

If I am mistaken in assuming that's what you were asking I apologize. Different dentists may charge differently. Some charge the top range where as others will charge in the lower range of the schedule of benefits. You can always call a few and ask for a quote.

tuppenybitz

no, she must be a permanent resident of canada to get health care, health care doesn't cover teeth unless you have private health cover

if you have been away from canada for over 6 months you don't have health cover either

Cariad

There are a few conditions that need to be met in order to be eligible for health care. You need to be able to fulfill all three aspects to be eligible for health care.

One of the first ones is your citizenship status. For yourself, you said you were Canadian so you have that yourself. Your wife currently does not, and thus is not meeting this first requirement. "Canadian citizenship" for a health card is not just being born here, or having a permanent residence card. There is also all of these that "could" make someone eligible for this category. (check this link http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/public/program/ohip/ohipfaq_dt.html#Q1) You do need to present proof of this...whether this is a Canadian passport, Canadian birth certificate or work permit etc

The next part of being eligible for health care is living here for a certain amount of time. Since health care is administered provincially, this depends on the province. In most provinces you must be physically IN the province for between 153-183 days of any 12 month period. (not year....TWELVE MONTH period) When you first move to Canada and get coverage, you will need to be in Canada for a certain amount in the first 12 months as well....and then you get into your "normal" residency requirement. Even some Canadians forget if they go to another province for a vacation, that is considered not being in their home province for the required amount of days. If you are ever questioned, it is up to the PERSON to prove they were here, not the other way around. This residency document can be a utility bill if it has a PHYSICAL address on it, tax statement, provincial drivers license etc Right now neither you or your wife fulfill this.

You also need a supporting document....this is the easiest of the bunch. It has be a separate document from the others. This one must have your name AND signature on it. A credit card, passport, etc.

After you present all that, you will be determined if you are eligible or not. There is a three month wait. Be aware too, if your wife gets a work permit up here that is good for coverage, that any lapses of over 30 days will cause her to have another three month wait for coverage.

In answer to the other part of your question...most dental is not a covered benefit of any of the provincial plans. Only things like cleft palate work are covered. The only exception to this is Quebec, and there is a lot of controversy right now about their dental plan. The last I read was that dentists were refusing to bill the province for their work. (even in Quebec only certain dental procedures are covered, and only in some cases)

geneburmington

i think if your canadian and she's your wife, legally-citizenship or not-she is likely (or should be) acceptable for healthcare; i mean-people can live in other countries on visas w/o renouncing their citizenship for another country, and a visa makes you eligable for whatever social programs are available in that country-they have to; how else would u take care of urself?

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