Ontario Government takes away nine-year-old's milk

Carrie Bovingdon got the shock of her life on Monday.

The Sault Ste. Marie mother of three went to the pharmacy to pick up a supply of Vivonex Pediatric Powder, a specialized nutrition product that her nine-year-old, severely disabled daughter Karley needs to survive.

Karley consumes five or six packages of the milk replacement product daily. Each package costs $7.03.

Until this week, the Ontario Government paid the full $35 to $42 daily cost of Karley's life-sustaining milk.

On Monday, Carrie Bovingdon learned from her pharmacist that changes to Ontario's Drug Benefit Formulary mean that only $2.10 of the $7.03 cost of Karley's milk will now be covered by the province.

$930 a month

That means she'll have to find as much as $930 a month to keep her daughter alive.

The special pediatric milk is used by children with multiple disabilities who can be fed only through a stomach tube.

Vivonex is the only product Karley's fragile body can tolerate, and she'll die without it.

'I went hysterical'

"I went hysterical," Bovingdon said on Tuesday. She says hundreds of other Algoma families will be similarly affected by the cut.

If the decision to cut funding for life-sustaining nutrition products for the severely disable was ever announced publicly, Bovingdon says she never heard about it.

Neither did Sault MPP Tony Martin, who introduced Bovingdon at a news conference on Tuesday.

Martin is also seeing red over the decision.

"It's unconscionable, in my view," Martin said. "First off, that the government would do this. Second, that they wouldn't tell people about it."

'Obvious oversight,' health ministry spokesman says

Martin said it's one of the most heartless acts of government he's ever witnessed, and he's "declaring war" on the governing Conservatives until the decision is reversed.

That might be close to happening.

John Letherby, a spokesman for the Ontario Ministry of Health, told SooToday News this afternoon that an "obvious oversight" had occurred in Karley Bovingdon's case and ministry staff were contacting the family to arrange to resolve the problem.

Letherby was unable to say what steps will be taken in the Bovingdon case, or whether action will be taken on behalf of other affected families.

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