The province of Ontario paid doctors for every experimental COVID shot they administered, with one physician now being told to repay the $600,000 she earned by using medical students to mass vaccinate residents.
In a November 26 ruling, the Ontario Health Services Board ordered Kingston-based Dr. Elaine Ma to pay back over $600,000 which she had claimed after having undergraduate medical student volunteers mass vaccinate Ontario residents in 2021.
“The Appeal Board orders the Respondent to reimburse OHIP the amount of $600,962.16,” the board wrote in their decision.
Beginning in January 2021, Ma had organized drive-in vaccination clinics in several parking lots in the Kingston region to vaccinate thousands of Canadians. She recruited undergraduate medical student volunteers to administer the shots.
Under Ma’s program, which lasted until January 2022, 27,250 doses of the experimental COVID shot were administered, earning her a total of $606,657.60, according to the General Manager of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP).
According to OHIP, Ontario doctors were paid $13 for administrating COVID vaccines, and an additional $5.60 if the patient’s sole reason for their appointment was receiving the shot.
However, OHIP argued that Ma’s claims did not meet their requirements as she used volunteers to administer the vaccines, explaining, “the persons who administered vaccines at the clinics organized by Dr. Ma during the Review Period were not her employees.”
As a result, she was ordered to repay the money. However, Ma is arguing that she was acting in Ontario’s best interest, considering the alleged danger of the COVID “pandemic.”
“It’s really still just disbelief that we’ve completely forgotten about COVID,” she told CTV News Ottawa. “We’ve completely forgotten what we were asked to do. We’ve completely forgotten the fact that we were asked to do it in new and different ways, and quickly, and as fast as possible.”
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