A Montreal woman who was told by health-care professionals that she was too young for breast cancer but later diagnosed with it, has died from the disease. Valerie Buchanan was 32 when she died at the end of February.
“I keep asking myself why anyone, but selfishly, why her?” Chris Scheepers, Buchanan’s husband told CTVNews.ca in a telephone interview. “She was a beautiful person. She was extremely driven, talented and positive. What really breaks me is our son won’t know the truly remarkable woman she was.”
Throughout 2020, Buchanan sought answers for a lump in her chest but had said she was reassured by multiple health-care professionals in Ottawa and Montreal that it was a benign cyst without sending her for imaging to confirm.
After 13 months, Buchanan eventually went to a private clinic and was diagnosed with Stage 3 triple-negative breast cancer – a biologically aggressive subtype of breast cancer. Just a few months later, she learned it was Stage 4.
I heard good things about healthcare in Canada. I come from a country that also has universal healthcare, but doctors are paid measly wages and results are what you pay for. 4-5 hours waits at emergency rooms, doctors and nurses refusing to do more than the bare minimum, or not event that, unless you give them a little “incentive”, etc, etc. So actually good doctors go to practice in private clinics or other countries, where they’re paid properly. I have lots of horror stories from the healthcare system in my native country.
But I thoght that Canada properly funds their healthcare system and this stuff wouldn’t happen.
Buddy, Canada has the second worst healthcare system among high income countries, behind only the shitstain that is the US system.
The system is so underfunded that wait times are abysmal and doctors/nurses leave in droves to avoid dealing with consequences of underfunding.
People believe all kinds of bullshit about Canadian healthcare. We have an awful healthcare system. I have had to forgo treatments because I couldn’t afford them. Many things aren’t covered under provincial healthcare plans, many ERs regularly suspend service due to being shortstaffed (which has led to many deaths), we have more and more private health clinics that charge exorbitant fees for basic services, we have systemic discrimination against women and racialized people, and we have relatively high rates of medical bankruptcy. The whole system is fucked.
God, it’s so fucked that somehow your system is better than ours (USA) in most cases and certainly general affordability and it’s still that bad.
Fucking wild. I suppose like everything else it’s a spectrum for people’s experiences and depends on the province and local govt.