Jamaican migrant worker granted federal health care after being fired from N.S. farm

CITYnews halifax \ By Marlo Glass, The Canadian Press

HALIFAX — A migrant worker diagnosed with cervical cancer shortly after arriving in Nova Scotia has been granted health insurance under a federal program, but advocates continue to call on the province to expand health coverage to people without permanent residency.

Kerian Burnett arrived from Jamaica in April 2022 to work on a Colchester County strawberry farm. She told a news conference in Halifax on Monday that after falling ill, she was fired and forced to navigate a cancer diagnosis without medical coverage.

Her lawyer, Thiago Buchert, told reporters, “Right when she needed it, she lost her health insurance.”

Other provinces provide migrant workers with public health coverage, but migrants in Nova Scotia must have a one-year work permit to be eligible for care, said Buchert, who is with the Halifax Refugee Clinic.

“Imagine if everything in your life relied on you maintaining a job,” he said, “That’s the kind of vulnerability and dependency that migrant workers face.”

Buchert said that after nearly eight months, Burnett was granted health insurance under the interim federal health program. Burnett was also granted emergency temporary residence until January 2024, he said, and will be able to continue her cancer treatment in Canada, as her doctors recommended.

Burnett said that after she was diagnosed with cancer she received care — chemotherapy, radiation and several surgeries — at the discretion of hospitals because she was uninsured. Fighting for coverage while receiving treatment for cancer has been a long, challenging road, she said, describing the “humiliation” of being turned away from hospitals and paying out of pocket for prescriptions.

“So I had to fight,” she said. “It was a long fight, and a hard process, which I think is unfair because we’re dealing with someone’s life here. Once you die, there’s no coming back.”

Stacey Gomez, with migrant advocacy group No One Is Illegal – Nova Scotia, told reporters Monday that while Burnett’s case is a win, a permanent solution is needed.

“We regularly see migrant workers who are injured or who are severely ill, who are repatriated back to their home country without getting proper medical attention,” she said, adding that workers often don’t speak out over fears of being fired, sent back to their home countries and barred from working again in Canada.

The migrant justice group is calling on the Nova Scotia government to provide health-care coverage to all migrant workers in the province. Gomez said her group is among several others that are pressuring the federal government to grant permanent immigration status to all migrants across the country.

“This would ensure migrant workers have access to essential services like health care,” she said, “that they are fully able to exercise their labour rights and able to be with their families.”

Burnett said she is motivated by her family, especially her five-year-old granddaughter back in Jamaica.

“She gives me the hope to move on in life.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 14, 2023.

Marlo Glass, The Canadian Press