A Toronto resident digs out after a major snowstorm on Jan. 26.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Jessica Slice is the author of Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World.
I estimate that I will spend eight weeks stuck inside my house this winter. Long after a winter storm has passed, and most Canadians are back to their regular life, those of us who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids remain trapped at home. For people who walk, piles of slush at intersections or mounds of snow halfway down a block might barely register. But for a wheelchair user, those obstacles are insurmountable. When I check the weather, I scroll ahead to when daily temperatures stay above freezing. Then I can be in the world again. One friend who uses a wheelchair spends the winter house-sitting in the countryside of Quebec, where they can be stuck at home but have nicer views than from their apartment.
The scariest part of being stuck at home is not being able to access the medical care I need. So far in 2026, I’ve had to cancel a dental exam, a dermatologist visit for a suspicious mole, and a mammogram. I will schedule them again once I can access the offices.
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While I obviously can’t visit a dentist through my computer, I was sure that snow wouldn’t prevent me from virtually reviewing my medical history with my new family doctor. In mid-January, I finally got off a Toronto medical centre’s waiting list. Two days before the scheduled visit, my husband and I did a trial run to see if I could reach the office. Unfortunately, the curb cuts were too icy to get from the street to the sidewalk in my 450-pound wheelchair.
I called the office and asked if we could have our first visit over the phone; as soon as the sidewalks were traversable, I could come in. The doctor’s assistant said no. Their policy is that the initial visit must be in person. I explained I couldn’t wait two months until the sidewalks would be reliably clear to have a family doctor, and that, from what I understood, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires physicians to accommodate disabled patients. The assistant spoke to the doctor and called me back, explaining that since I was “causing trouble,” they would “refuse to see me ever.” They fired me from the practice.
This was not legal. According to Wade Poziomka, a human rights attorney who served as the Chair of the Ontario Bar Association’s Constitutional, Civil Liberties and Human Rights Section and sits on the executive of the Canadian Bar Association’s Constitutional and Human Rights Section, “physicians are service providers and subject to the Ontario Human Rights Code. This means that they have to accommodate patients, when necessary, to the point of undue hardship. In my view, the duty to accommodate would require a physician to see a patient virtually when a patient cannot physically make it into the office because of a ground protected by the Code, like disability.” A phone call does not constitute undue hardship.
This conversation prompted me to look at the situations in which doctors must provide care virtually and what services disabled people have the right to access. In every province, there are four sets of guidelines that dictate standards of care, each dependent on adherence to the next. A medical practice has its own policies, which must comply with provincial reimbursement policies, and reimbursements must align with the ethics of the governing medical association. Finally, all sets of guidelines must not conflict with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or any other provincial human rights codes.
In the case of the medical clinic in Toronto, their office policy (all initial appointments must be done in person in the office) contradicts all three. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario dictates that appointments “must be in a location that is reasonably physically accessible to the patient or accessible via virtual care, where appropriate.” OHIP reimburses virtual visits, though at a lower rate. Most importantly, medical access is a human right in Canada.
As Mr. Poziomka explained, “the duty to accommodate is not optional for physicians – it is required by both the Ontario Human Rights Code and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s policy called Human Rights in the Provision of Health Services.” Each province has similar requirements.
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Doctors resist seeing patients virtually for a few reasons. One, after the first two years of COVID-19, they were encouraged to return to in-person visits. Also, most provinces reimburse less for virtual appointments. The workload of many family doctors makes deviating from their normal routine difficult. Moreover, their ethical obligations to disabled patients are often poorly communicated by the regulating agencies.
Fortunately, the solution is fairly straightforward. When provincial medical associations and reimbursement plans update doctors on policies, there must be clear language emphasizing the access rights of disabled people. It took me hours of research and conversations with attorneys to determine that yes, the doctor had a legal obligation to provide care. Those rights should not be buried in the fine print. Of course, a doctor should also be held accountable for refusing to see a patient due to a disability or access needs. Such a posture is fundamentally antithetical to their obligations as physicians.
Additionally, we must advocate for a different reimbursement structure where doctors are not paid less for virtual visits, particularly if those virtual visits are disability accommodations. Disabled care will suffer if doctors are not adequately reimbursed for it. And, because there will inevitably still be discrimination, disabled people should be educated on their rights and have a clear pathway for advocating for themselves when those rights are violated.
After a recent radio interview about the snow-covered sidewalks in the winter, a family doctor reached out to me to offer a home visit and continuing care. I am grateful, of course, but adequate medical support should not require a media appearance. Access must not be merit-based, nor a result of garnering enough attention. The very definition of a human right is that it does not need to be earned – all you need to do to deserve care is to be a person who needs it.