NLGJA Insight

By Ryan McLendon
Insight staff writer

Inside the American healthcare debate, the Canadian system is often used in argument. But when you step away from the politics, one thing is clear: all Canadians have access to health care.

Canada’s LGBT Community greatly benefits from the Canadian healthcare system. Access to medicine, hospitals and preventative care keeps the rate of new HIV infections lower than many Western nations, according to a researcher.

In 2007, the number of Canadians living with HIV was 59,372 as compared to the United States which had 571,378 at the same time according to Avert, an international AIDS charity group. It’s statistically similar to the United States.

But the LGBT community might be underserved by the Canadian system according to Bill Ryan, professor of Social Work at McGill University in Montreal, who has been researching HIV and HIV prevention in Canada for nearly 20 years.

Ryan is an expert in the field of gay health and is a co-founder of the Rainbow Health Coalition. He believes homophobia in the system keeps gays and lesbians from seeking early medical treatment and preventative care.

“If we don’t do prevention, we’re just going to end up caring and supporting multitudes of gay and bisexual men,” Ryan said.

Ryan says the Canadian healthcare model mirrors the field of gay men’s health in Canada by focusing on demographic groups rather than only individual health care. The Canadian system encourages groups of people to look at their health needs as whole.

However, Ryan believes a lack of sensitivity affects gay people’s ability to stay healthy.

“Nobody is going to be refused because they’re gay, lesbian or bisexual,” Ryan said. “But that doesn’t mean necessarily that those that provide the service will be sensitive.”

Yves Lafontaine, editor of Fugues, and LGBT Magazine in Montreal, also said there isn’t an adequate amount of HIV prevention in Montreal.

The government conducts public testing and provides condoms to bars and saunas, but Lafontaine said that’s not nearly enough.

“There’s not always a cohesive strategy [in Canada,]” Lafontaine said. “The problem is more like structuring and integrating HIV prevention into a larger definition of sexual health for gay men,” Lafontaine said.

“The idea is to have better view of all the groups who are most at risk” he said.

However, if a gay person feels that a healthcare professional has discriminated against them because of their sexuality, they have recourse in every single province. All LGBT are protected from discrimination by human rights laws that are identical throughout each province.

Ryan believes if sensitivity issues in gay healthcare were tracked appropriately, it would increase the regularity of LGBT people’s medical visits. But he does believe that insensitivity in healthcare isn’t entirely malicious, but perhaps the result of insufficient training.

“Many people within the healthcare system still don’t feel that they have been trained adequately on these issues,” Ryan said.