Ontario is flinging open the operating-room doors to provide health care for foreign children whose life-saving surgeries have been cancelled due to U.S. President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
In the wake of Trump’s temporary immigration ban against citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which has affected thousands of families, Health Minister Eric Hoskins offered a prescription to help.
“This is a particular subset of children who require life-saving surgery, so absent that surgery, they will certainly die,” Hoskins said Friday.
“It has come to our attention that, as a result of new travel restrictions, children who were scheduled to receive specialized life-saving surgeries in the United States, are now being turned away,” he said.
“These children are being turned away solely because of where they were born.
“As Ontarians, we have an obligation to respond when we know that we have the ability to help.”
Hoskins, a former aid worker and co-founder of War Child Canada, a non-governmental organization that helps kids from war zones, said time is of the essence.
“We are currently working on a broad humanitarian response to provide life-saving care to children whose surgeries have been cancelled,” the minister said.
“Given that this is a critical time for these ill children, our ministry and Ontario’s specialized children’s hospitals, which provide best-in-the-world care, feel the responsibility to act quickly,” he said.
A physician himself, Hoskins said Ontario’s medical expertise can save lives.
“My staff is working with our federal partners and hospitals, primarily the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, to determine whether there is an opportunity to support such patients during this challenging time,” he said.
“We have capacity in Ontario to provide highly specialized care that is not widely available in the world.”
Last week, Trump said refugees would be banned from entering the U.S. for 120 days as part of an “extreme vetting” aimed at supposed terrorists.
At the same time, immigration from seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — is prohibited for three months.
The new president’s edict has sparked chaos around the globe and an estimated 60,000 people have had their visas revoked.
It is unclear precisely how many children requiring health procedures are affected.
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