Getting the Special Diet: How the City is Illegally Prying into People’s Private Lives

Getting the Special Diet: How the City is Illegally Prying into People’s Private Lives

David Miller and Councillor Joe Mehivc often talk about wanting to help poor people. The City has held poverty reduction meetings and passed this resolution in December of 2005: “TSS [Toronto Social Services] ensure that social assistance recipients receive all dietary benefits to which they are entitled and that TSS staff are properly trained to not eliminate any dietary benefits recipients are eligible to receive.”

Behind the scenes, however, the City goes out of its way to violate people’s privacy and deny the special diet.

Take a look at the form below. This is something that some welfare workers are handing out to people who are applying to get the Special Diet Supplement, especially at Rogers Road and Scarborough North Social Services.

If you sign this form and give it to your doctor, it entitles OW to access your medical records, including psychiatric reports, your sexual history, or any of your other private information that your doctor may have.

It is illegal for welfare to make you fill this form out before they give you the Special Diet.

If you get this form, do not fill it out. Call OCAP right away. If you have already filled this form out, write a letter to your doctor saying you revoke consent and call OCAP.

This form is actually for people who are sick and cannot work or participate in programs. If you are applying for limited participation you do have to fill out this consent. Likewise, if you are applying for ODSP, you have to fill out a similar form. However, if you are just on regular welfare they have no right to your private medical information.

In fact, people call our office with Special Diet problems on a regular basis. These calls come in because welfare has:

• refused to issue Special Diet forms to all or some members of the family;

• only issued part of the money people are entitled to;

• refused to issue the money if the form is signed by certain doctors or if the person has not been seeing the doctor who filled out the form for six months or longer;

• refused to issue the money until someone puts in a request for diabetic supplies or for limited participation;

• not issued the money for the full year, even if the doctor says they should get the money for a year or longer;

• cut people off without giving them the 90 days notice they are supposed to get;

• deducted overpayments from the Special Diet;

• refused to accept the conditions and refused to issue the money.

• mailed back the form, refusing to accept it or issue any written denial; or

• has workers ‘diagnose’ recipients and say they do not have certain conditions.

All of these things are illegal but they happen all the time in Toronto. If the City followed the law, poor people in Toronto would be far better off. But we all know that even full entitlement for people on welfare isn’t enough, we need a raise in the rates.