TORONTO

Hospitals should be ordered to stop pursuing “medical tourists” while Ontarians join wait lists for health-care services, a coalition says in an open letter to Health Minister Eric Hoskins.

Doris Grinspun, of the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO), said she first learned of the practice when Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN) agreed to accept patients sent by the Libyan government, but it has since spread to other hospitals.

“We made a deal with the devil to take care of I don’t even know who,” Grinspun said. “Medical tourism is a whole trend.”

Nurses have told her that women from China come to Toronto and pay a fee to have their second babies, which are frowned upon in their home country, Grinspun said.

These patients are not being brought to Ontario for humanitarian reasons, like children from war-torn or Third World countries, but because the services can generally be provided more cheaply than the United States, she said.

RNAO, the Association of Ontario Health Centres and the Association of Ontario Midwives sent an open letter to Hoskins Wednesday that says if there are surplus nurses or doctors in the province, they would recommend directing those extra health-care resources to the more pressing needs of Ontario patients.

Grinspun said she believes that hospital executives are eager to play in the “big leagues” like some U.S. hospitals that routinely take in international patients for big money.

“It’s the beginning of the end of medicare, of universality,” she said.

Hoskins said he has already directed his ministry officials to review the policy for international patients and will ensure that proper safeguards are in place so that provincial health-care dollars flow only to Ontarians.

Hospitals must put Ontario patients first and any revenue from international patients should be used to improve health care for provincial residents, he said.

“There is no more ardent defender of our universal public health-care system than our government and Ontario patients should have full confidence that their hospitals have their care as their very top priority,” Hoskins said in a statement.

The minister said he has taken the letter “very seriously” and will respond shortly.

Marnie Escaf and Nizar Mahomed, responsible for UHN’s international programs, said in an online response to criticism that it treated 86 patients last year — the largest number were wounded in Libya’s civil war and could not receive adequate treatment at home.

“Our brave Armed Forces helped to liberate Libyans from an oppressive regime. We were asked to help repair the damage to civilians caused by the civil war and were happy to help,” the pair said in the article.

Funds from the international program helped UHN open two additional in-patient hospital rooms and an additional operating room for the year, the article said.