(QUEEN’S PARK) – MPP Randy Hillier (Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington) introduced a petition to the Legislative Assembly asking the Ontario Government to take action against Chronic Lyme Disease.
“In Ontario, OHIP does not cover those specific tests that can provide an accurate clinical diagnosis; instead the test we fund is reputed to provide false negatives in up to 95% of cases,” remarked Hillier. “Scientifically validated treatment options are not currently available in Ontario, and Ontario victims are forced to seek treatments in the United States and Europe; this is unacceptable.”
Chronic Lyme Disease mimics other catastrophic illnesses such as MS, Crohn’s, Alzheimer's, Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia, among others, making it difficult to diagnose. The testing used in Ontario has been identified as unreliable in other jurisdictions and scrapped in favour of a more reliable testing regime.
“I was aware there was a concern with how we diagnose and treat Lyme Disease patients in Ontario, which is why I started the petition. The level of interest and support I received, not only from people across the province, but also from across the country was beyond my expectations,” said Hillier. “Reading and hearing the stories of suffering people who, limited in Ontario by a government directed diagnosis system that doesn’t work, were forced to go to great expense and burden to other jurisdictions for treatment we should be able to provide here was heartbreaking. With the money we spend on health care in Ontario, there is no reason we should be providing substandard diagnosis and treatment for an illness that the Canadian Medical Association identifies as endemic.”
You can view the reading of the petition on Mr. Hillier’s website here:
Randy Hillier, MPP Lanark Frontenac Lennox, is a co-founder of the Lanark Landowners Association, which was brought to life to address government imposition on the rights of private property owners, and to address the regressive regulatory impositions that government was bringing down upon farmers and business owners in rural Ontario.
In 2006, Randy resigned as President of the OLA in order to run as a candidate for the Progressive Conservatives. Randy was elected in the 2007 provincial election.
Randy a long-time resident of Lanark County, an electrician by trade and member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), continues to co-publish and edit rural Ontario’s successful magazine “The Landowner.”
