Christine Tizzard, a cookbook author and television chef, had to fly to Pittsburgh for life-saving brain surgery after she was unable to find comparable treatment in Canada. (CBC)
A widely known television chef from Newfoundland and Labrador says she was forced to leave Canada to have life-saving brain surgery, which left her fighting the Canadian health-care system for reimbursement.
Earlier this year, Christine Tizzard appealed to social media to help fund her treatment, disclosing she had been diagnosed with chondrosarcoma.
“The tumour was growing quite aggressively and significantly,” Tizzard said.
“The general consensus was that I needed to have brain surgery to try to get rid of it.”
Plagued by rapidly progressing pain, jaw spasms and hearing loss, Tizzard called a hospital in Pittsburgh. She needed a doctor with specific training, who could remove all of the tumour and prevent it from growing back.
Canadian doctors could only offer her a “partial debulking,” telling Tizzard they couldn’t remove all of it at once, especially the part wrapped around her carotid artery, she said. That meant she’d still live with the threat of a sudden catastrophic stroke caused by the remaining tumour.
The American doctor, though, all but guaranteed full removal of the tumour in a single surgery.
Her best option, she told CBC News from her home in Ontario, was to head south. Because of that decision, she’s now cancer-free – but walked away with a bill over $133,000 US.
“It’s just so sad that I couldn’t have the surgery here,” she said. “I pay my taxes. I’ve been very [diligent] with my health.… I just found it very sad that there wasn’t an option for me here.”
Josh Dehaas, a lawyer with the non-profit Canadian Constitution Foundation, says he sees cases like Tizzard’s regularly.
“When the government is not providing surgeries that are life saving, that people need, in time – and that’s a problem across Canada – in some cases they’re violating your constitutional rights by doing that,” Dehaas says.
Sometimes provincial governments will pay for surgeries abroad when Canadian hospitals can’t provide them, he said. But that means applying to special programs.
“You might get rejected, you might not get reimbursed,” he said. “The most important thing is to be proactive.”
Josh Dehaas says he often helps patients seek reimbursement from provincial governments after having to go abroad for life-saving surgeries. (CBC)
Tizzard says she completed paperwork to request reimbursement from the Ontario government after her surgery. She says she was rejected, and had 30 days to appeal.
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“It’s pretty hard to get one of the top neurosurgeons in all of Canada to write a letter in 30 days. You can barely get an appointment to see one if you’re dying,” she said.
Tizzard says she’s hired a lawyer to reapply, but is still struggling to obtain the doctor’s notes.
“These doctors are busy,” she said. “It’s so much time out of their schedule.”
Fundraising helped Tizzard immensely to cover the up-front surgery costs, she says. Her GoFundMe campaign has raised over $154,000 to date. Off work since the end of winter, she’s now living off her savings and family support, she says. She still has double vision and hearing loss.
“You have to ask questions like, ‘Do I have to sell the house?’ And I don’t think as Canadians we should be forced to make those kinds of decisions,” she said.
“In the grand scheme of things, the tumour is gone. And it doesn’t look like I’m going to have to have any other surgeries. And that is just absolutely amazing.”
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