Mr. Speaker, the EI program for parents of critically ill children is a very valuable one, but only if it is working and paying people during their time of need. Sadly, it did not for Amanda Oram.
Cole Oram was born prematurely. He and his mom spent the next six months in the neonatal intensive care unit. She had to go into debt because she could not get EI to pay what she was owed. She spent exhausting hours trying to get through to Service Canada, waiting on hold, getting misdirected, having to resubmit applications, and having hospital documentation wrongly rejected.
Service Canada's unreachability and bungling caused Amanda to spend countless hours away from her newborn son.
A Mount Sinai Hospital study shows that the presence of parents of preemies improves weight gain, breastfeeding, and decreases infection.
Sadly, Cole died. Amanda does not want others to suffer the same nightmare. She will never get back those hours she lost with her son.
Service Canada is under-resourced and poorly managed. This government should be ashamed enough to act now to fix this.