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A Saskatoon woman who had a brain tumour treated in Edmonton wants the province to start covering travel-related costs when patients have to leave Saskatchewan for specialized health care.<\/p>\n
Tammy O\u2019Brien, 54, had an acoustic neuroma \u2014 a rare, benign tumour inside the skull on the nerve between the ear and brain. Treating it requires gamma knife radiosurgery, which isn\u2019t available in Saskatchewan.<\/p>\n
O’Brien went to Edmonton in November for the procedure, and is waiting to learn whether it was successful. The Saskatchewan government paid for the treatment, but its standard policy is to refuse to pay for any related travel costs.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien, who is on a fixed income, hoped the health ministry would cover the $854 for her flights and a stay in an out-patient residence.<\/p>\n
When she called Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill\u2019s office, a staff member instead gave her a list of charities to approach for financial help, O\u2019Brien said on Wednesday at an Official Opposition media event in Saskatoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI raised two kids by myself, put myself through university and have worked all my adult life, so it was humiliating,\u201d she told reporters. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then at the end of the call, she said, \u2018Or you could try crowdfunding.\u2019 And I was shocked. I felt dismissed and degraded.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement e-mailed to CBC News, the health ministry said it does connect patients with financial support for travel to medical appointments \u2014 including providing contact information for charities \u2014 but \u201cit is not policy to recommend crowdfunding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien said she wants the province to cover travel-related costs for anyone going to another province for procedures or other medical help that’s not available in Saskatchewan. She said the added financial pressure puts needless stress on patients and families.<\/p>\n
In its statement, the ministry emphasized that it paid for O\u2019Brien\u2019s treatment in Edmonton, but \u201cdoes not provide coverage or reimbursement for travel, accommodations and meal expenses incurred while receiving medical treatment outside of the province or country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The NDP Opposition wants the government to apologize to O’Brien and pay her medical travel bill. The party\u2019s health critic said more Saskatchewan residents than ever are traveling to other provinces for medical procedures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s unprecedented and it’s a clear sign that the government’s plans around health care simply have not worked,\u201d NDP MLA Keith Jorgenson said.<\/p>\n
The NDP did not have numbers to back up the “unprecedented” claim. Jorgenson said the party has filed an access to information request with the province.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there needs to be clear procedures developed by the province that say when they will cover travel costs and for whom,\u201d Jorgenson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever, ever should somebody have to set up a GoFundMe page in order to have a brain tumor [treated].\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-401319","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}