The stories are heartbreaking and decidedly un-Canadian if you believe in our countrys tradition of giving medical care to refugees.

Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews has already criticized Immigration Canada for new rules that deny refugees medical care. And last week, Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall (no softie on social issues) slammed the federal government for refusing to pay for chemotherapy for a Middle East refugee.

Now, the Stars Nicholas Keung has uncovered another distressing, but different, example of Immigration Canadas hard-line tactics, a decision that could deny a Toronto woman with renal failure a second chance at life. Her relative in El Salvador is offering a kidney and would travel here for the surgery but the federal department wont issue a visa, claiming he might refuse to leave.

Decisions like these are a black eye for a country built by immigrants, many of whom came as refugees, got a hand up and thrived. As Wall said last week, coverage for refugee health is common sense: This is the kind of country we are. You cover it.

While the kidney-donor refusal may be a sign of vigilance bordering on paranoia in the immigration department, the governments refusal to pay refugees' health care is the fallout from new rules that took effect on June 30.

The main goal of the Refugee Protection Act was legitimate: deny entry to bogus applicants. But rolled into the bill were punitive new rules that refused health treatment for many.

Its easy enough to alter these rules, although the federal Conservatives have never shown a propensity to admit to mistakes. Still, if Immigration Minister Jason Kenney removed limits on health care, he could display a humane touch.

Of course, the minister will no doubt rely on the conscience of provincial leaders to pick up emergency health-care costs. As Matthews warned him last summer, refugees will end up seeking help in local emergency rooms, many sicker than they should have been.

One hospital system, Torontos University Health Network, already pays $1.3 million a year in costs to care for refugees and will no longer be able to claim most of that.

The Interim Federal Health Program paid for the care of 128,000 refugees last year, at a cost of $84 million. That is 0.04 per cent of Canadas overall health bill surely not too much to care for people who are fleeing desperate lives of torture, violence or rape.

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Denying health care for refugees gives Canada a black eye