Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins said last week that the case of a Toronto mother of two stranded in a foreign hospital while her family and friends struggle to raise $50,000 to pay for an air ambulance home proved the need for travel insurance.
The uninsured traveller, Elissa Antonio, was visiting family in Trinidad when she fell 40 feet down the side of a cliff. Her pelvis was broken in several places in the fall; she also suffered a fractured sacrum, broken heel, and fractured leg.
"I cannot move the lower part of my extremities," Antonio told one media outlet from her hospital bed in Trinidad.
"I have to be fed, changed, given a bath. All these things that we take for granted."
Now Antonio needs an air ambulance for transport home, which comes with a $50,000 price tag, as local doctors have said they cannot treat the complex fractures. OHIP will not cover the cost.
