Sask. woman considers assisted dying because she can't get needed surgery for rare disease
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A Saskatchewan woman says she is considering medical assistance in dying (MAID) because she can’t get the surgery she desperately needs.
For the past eight years, Jolene Van Alstine has suffered from a rare form of parathyroid disease, normocalcemic primary hyperparathryroidism (nPHPT).
It causes extreme bone pain, nausea and vomiting.
“Every day I get up and I'm sick to my stomach and I throw up and I throw up,” Van Alstine said.
She visited the provincial legislature on Tuesday to plead for help getting surgery to remove her remaining parathyroid gland.
Currently there is no Saskatchewan surgeon able to perform the operation.
Van Alstine said she must be referred out of province, but she can’t obtain a referral without first being seen by an endocrinologist — and none of them are accepting new patients.
Van Alstine said the pain has become so unbearable that she has applied and been approved for MAID on Jan. 7.
“My friends have stopped visiting me. I'm isolated. I've been alone lying on the couch for eight years, sick and curled up in a ball, pushing for the day to end,” she said.
“I go to bed at six at night because I can't stand to be awake anymore.”
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Alstine said she must be referred out of province, but she can’t obtain a referral without first being seen by an endocrinologist — and none of them are accepting new patients.
Socialized medicine. They won't treat you, but they'll kill you for "free" (ignoring the high taxes that pay for the theoretical availability of health care)
Do you really imagine there is no one in the US going through something similar? Every private insurance company denies coverage for something. Every. One.
It baffles me that politicians in this country have been able to cultivate this absurd myth that the United States is some kind of Promised Land of perfect healthcare and regular people actually believe it. It is simply not true.
It’s baffling because everyone has experienced it in some way. You pay thousands of dollars a year in premiums, and the first time something happens to you… you pay for treatment. It’s called a deductible, and it’s just a way for insurance companies to avoid doing the most basic thing that they exist for - paying medical bills.
Everybody knows the memes about not getting an ambulance because they charge extra for a bandaid. Or that hospitals charge hundreds for Tylenol.
Then you see your doctor for a condition and he prescribes something. Again, you pay for it. At least some of it. Or, the insurance company refuses to cover it at all, and you have to try and get an alternative drug that they will cover. But your doctor already prescribed the medicine he believes you really need.
I had a kid who urgently needed a spinal fusion and the day of surgery - the very fucking day - we had to renegotiate with the insurance company.
So fuck our system and fuck the people who are trying to convince me that we live in some kind of health care paradise and that socialized medicine will send us all to healthcare Hell. We are already there. For profit healthcare is bullshit.
Get that strawman!
f fuck the people who are trying to convince me tha
Fuck the people who lie about socialized healthcare being "free" and pretending it doesn't come with real tradeoffs as far as access and quality of healthcare.
As if you understood the term.
Keep licking those boots and cheering on the world’s shittiest healthcare system relative to the nation’s wealth. And why? Because your fascist masters keep telling you it’s the best.
As per fucking usual, you don’t have anything of substance to offer in response to my comment. Just the standard partisan bullshit that says we can’t change anything because that path takes us into s…s…s…Socialism!
Run for your lives, people! The Socialism is coming! Aaaaaaa! Socialized Medicine will kill us allllll!!!!!!!
Evening....
Comparing our health care system with yours, I know which one I prefer..
Just y'day I was in ER at the local hospital...I thought I had a blood clot in my leg which turned out to be correct...
Walked in gave them my info, sat down called in within 10 minutes..blood tests taken, obs done, saw the doctor and booked if for an ultrasound that a/noon..
Scan took over an hour as they did my whole leg going right up to my liver.. waited for the results 10 cm blood clot in my leg, lucky it is in an insignificant vein, prescribed medication and out..the cost $0.. medication $7..for 45 days of tablets...
Yes you will get the odd cases where things go wrong but 98% of the time you see whoever and have whatever all in a timely and cost free manner...
In my case I have not had any drama's or problems in 6 years and my bill all up would be well over half a million dollars easy...could you afford that over there if your life depended on it as mine does here?.. doubt it and I would be 6 foot under by now in the States..
We think it's disgusting your survival depends on how big your bank account is there or your dumb arse insurance/drug companies playing god..
So why is the US government trying to force our government to drop our regulations on our PBS scheme because Trump doesn't like it that drug and insurance companies have no say here on the costs or who they will or won't treat?
Why would we want a system like yours?..
There may well be very rare cases like that, and as it is so unique it makes the news, but the system of universal medical care, which is used by most advanced western nations, provides medical care to almost all, whether or not they can afford it. In Canada, during my lifetime (except getting my tonsils out at age 4 because that was BEFORE universal medical care in Canada) I experienced 2 operations and any other medical examinations and procedures I required during my lifetime at no cost to me, notwithstanding that my taxes had a slight increase because of it. Those whose income was low paid much less taxes, and those who had no income were STILL covered. Nobody ever went bankrupt because of medical care. And if the necessary procedure was not available in Canada and obtained in the USA it was STILL covered. As I said, the article is about a highly unusual and unique circumstance, which is why it made the news.
By the way, as a senior citizen, I also got all prescribed medicine free save for a small pharmacy dispensing fee of a few dollars and an annual payment of a $100 registration fee.
You've been away from Canada to long. Lack of access to healthcare providers in Canada is an ongoing and well reported problem
This story is news because the Canadian medical system will happily kill her, but can't provide basic treatment and its a juxtaposition that perfectly encapsulates the problems Canada faces. .
I read the Canadian news every day and It's pretty rare that I've seen something negative, but I admit that over the years I've seen a couple of articles like the one you posted. I think the last one a couple of years ago was about the fact that there were no doctors up north in Moosenee.
And America doesn’t have that problem?
Happily? The American system kills people every day, but conservatives don’t want to fix it. I guess they’re happy about it, too?
What does this woman’s story have to do with basic treatment?
source to back up that claim?
It’s “well reported” in the sense that conservatives trot out that old canard every time someone tries to improve America’s healthcare system. The way they wax apocalyptic about every other healthcare system, the streets of Canada and Europe should be littered with the bodies of those who died at the hands of Socialized Medicine.
Google. Lol. It's not a secret.
Here's a Canadian study
Here's a story on Canadians lining up in the cold just to get the chance to register to see a family care physician.
Glenn Beck is doing the work in conjunction with the state department in trying to bring this victim from the third world country she resides in to get the life saving treatment she needs ....