http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1128377411104&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
Oct. 4, 2005. 01:00 AM
Activists protest `diet' cut
OCAP says poor need food assistance
But minister says program being abused
ROB FERGUSON AND ROBERT BENZIE
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
Single mother Sandy Bowen gets $490 a month on social assistance
and says it's not enough to feed her and 18-month-old son Jaden.
That's why she went to Queen's Park yesterday for a free lunch
and a doctor's note ? which could garner her and her baby up to
$250 more a month each for food ? at the Ontario Coalition
Against Poverty's "hunger clinic."
The clinic was aimed at getting 1,000 welfare recipients signed
up for the provincial government's diet allowance, designed to
help people whose medical conditions create nutritional
challenges on tight budgets.
"I've been feeling dizzy and the dietitian says it's because I'm
not eating healthy," said Bowen, as she lined up with hundreds
of others, some in wheelchairs, others pushing baby strollers.
"With the extra money I'd be able to buy vitamins and fruit."
But it will soon become tougher for people without specific
medical conditions such as cancer, hypertension, pregnancy,
diabetes or HIV and AIDS to get the diet allowance.
Social Services Minister Sandra Pupatello said the government is
moving quickly to close a loophole being exploited by "rogue
advocates" like OCAP, whose officials acknowledged they have
held 20 such clinics since February. Some 10,000 people
currently receive monthly diet allowances.
"Our hope is that we'll put the government in the position where
they're forced to raise welfare rates and grant this special
diet money to everybody on assistance without needing to prove
that you need food for your family," said clinic organizer
Rachel Huot.
Application forms for the allowance, which must be signed by a
doctor or another health professional, are being revised to
include more precise medical criteria, Pupatello said.
Currently, doctors are simply required to outline a medical
condition requiring a special diet, which Pupatello said is
leading to "abuse" of the allowance for which spending has
doubled every year in the last five years.
`There's actually a campaign out there to misuse the intent of
such special diet allowances.'
Sandra Pupatello, social services minister
She said some doctors have been threatened by patients demanding
they sign the diet forms, a growing problem that a source at the
Ontario Medical Association confirmed.
"We didn't see any abuse of it in the past," Pupatello said in
an interview.
"When we understand that there's actually a campaign out there
to misuse the intent of such special diet allowances, we have a
problem with this because the system has to have integrity."
Several people at the hunger clinic said they've had difficulty
getting their physicians to complete and sign the diet allowance
application forms.
"My doctor of 15 years refused," said Patricia Messam, who is
raising three children on $934 a month in welfare and relies
heavily on a food bank.
Other doctors are happy to sign.
"The premise of the clinic today is that poverty is a medical
condition and helping people to access adequate funds to afford
a nutritious diet is a medical intervention," said Dr. Melissa
Melnitzer, a Toronto family physician helping out at the clinic
yesterday.
"Some of the diets are for calcium-rich foods, which, for
example, helps to prevent osteoporosis (and) iron-rich foods ?
many people, who are poor, certainly have anaemia or are low in
iron."
Diets that aren't nutritious can lead to growth and development
problems in children and low immunity to diseases as simple as
the flu, requiring more educational help and medical care, said
Joan Lesmond of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario.
That's why more people on social assistance need the extra
money, she added.
"In the long run it's going to be more cost effective for the
government because people won't get as sick."
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