A private business on P.E.I. says it can provide international visitors to the province much faster access to some health-care services than Island residents can expect to receive — for a price.
PEIdoctor.com is also pitching for-pay health consultations to Canadians, raising concerns from advocates of Canada’s universal health-care system.
The website says it can provide international visitors and Quebec residents with same-day, non-emergency access to a physician, including weekend and evening visits, even house calls to their hotel, cottage or AirBnB.
Those come at a cost ranging from $229 for a virtual consultation to $900 or more for house calls.
“We believe more visitors will come and longer-stay visitors will come and people who, for instance, are in their retirement age may come for longer stays,” said Marius Croeser, CEO of EndWell Management Inc., the P.E.I. company behind the website.
Dr. Janine Karpakis is one of the two doctors listed on the website. She’s a family doctor who works for Health P.E.I. from a clinic on St. Peters Road in Charlottetown.
She said the appointments she keeps with paying international customers fall outside her regular duties with her patient panel from her family practice.
“It’s all about convenience,” she said about the tourist appointments. “It really is about not having to wait in urgent care or [the] ER.”
According to a Google review posted on the website, a woman claiming to be a U.S. resident wrote: “We received better care from Dr. Karpakis than any care we’ve received in YEARS in the US… If you’re a visitor to P.E.I. avoid urgent care 12+ hour waits and book a 30 minute visit here!”
Karpakis said patients are “mostly people who’ve forgotten their medication at home and need a quick prescription or, you know, a bladder infection or a little rash, an insect bite, that sort of stuff.”
Those appointments aren’t available to P.E.I. residents because the Canada Health Act stipulates medically necessary health-care services have to be provided to insured Canadians without charge.
But PEIdoctor.com does have a service it offers to Canadian residents, including Islanders.
On its website, that’s billed as a type of medical information session — 45 minutes with a doctor to explain existing diagnoses, specialist reports, lab and imaging results at a cost of $195.
