Ontario’s Ministry of Health says it is launching an investigation into the practices of an Ottawa Appletree clinic after a woman was charged $110 to see a nurse practitioner for a routine cancer screening test.

Eileen Murphy says she registered with the Appletree clinic near Carling and Woodroffe last year because both she and her husband were without a family doctor. Their former doctor switched her practice from family medicine to dermatology in 2022.

But when Murphy tried to make an appointment for a routine Pap test recently — part of the Ontario government’s preventative cervical cancer screening program — she was told the doctor she was registered with through Appletree was now located in Northern Ontario. She tried other doctors but they said they wouldn’t take her without a referral. She was told she could make an appointment with a nurse practitioner for the test at the Appletree clinic on Carling Avenue, where she had registered.

When she got there, she says she was stunned to see a “laundry list” of fees to access the nurse practitioner and have the test performed. In Murphy’s case, because she is over 50 and has an OHIP card, the fee was $97 — $110 with taxes. Patients under 50 are charged $49, plus taxes, for an appointment, Murphy saw.