The wife of a lung transplant receptor who died in May says that her family’s attempt to save her husband’s life has cost her her family home in Springhill, ns
Donald Goguen, a veteran of the Canadian Navy, died in May complications of two lung transplants last year.
Verbena Brenton-Goguen afflicts her husband, but is dealing with the financial consequences of life in Toronto for 15 months while he received treatment.
“I can’t afford to live here,” he said about his house in Cumberland County. “I will sell it. There is no way to retire at 60. It is not an absolute way.”
Brenton-Goguen is one of the three families of New Scotland who have spoken with CBC News about the financial tension of accessing the surgery that save lives. While the procedure is covered by the province, all its expenses are not.
Families are renewed to the provincial government to boost funds to cover their accommodations.
The Minister of Health, Michelle Thompson, says that it sympathizes with families, but says that the medical care system stretches in many directions and that the department has to make difficult decisions.
The lungs are the only organ that cannot be transplanted in Halifax. Patients in the Atlantic region should go to Toronto once they are placed in the transplant list, and should wait months until a coincidence is found.
Several provinces offer monthly subsidies to help deal with expenses, but families say that the New Scotland program, which provides $ 3,000 per month, is well below the realities of living in Toronto for an indeterminate period of time.
Donald Goguen received attention for 15 months. During that time, his wife said, they sold their car and ATV and took out a loan. They were preparing to sell the house when he died.
“If there were any possibility that I could help save my husband’s life, I would have given everything, but it is something now that I am facing. So it is not just the patient. It’s the family,” he said.
Brenton-Goguen said that when she notified that she was leaving Toronto apartment and went home, the province denied her subsidy to help with the rent of June because her husband, the patient, had died.
“It really is a slap on the face, it really is,” he said. “I do all the things that a good person should try to support their province and, honestly, our province does not support us properly in any way.”
Brenton-Goguen is now launching his support behind Nan and Dave Clarke, by St. Margarets Bay, near Halifax, who sent the Premier an invoice for $ 34,981, the amount they had to pay from their pocket for their accommodations while waiting for Nan Clarke’s transplant in December. The claim was denied.
“I think it’s abhorrent,” said Nan Clarke. “I can’t believe they do this to transplanted patients or anyone who faces a medical problem that has to leave.”
The Clarkes argued that they had no choice but to find the money, because Nan would have died without the transplant. While they could do it financially, they concern some people who do not have the resources to pay the high costs of their pocket will simply opt for palliative care.
The Minister of Health said that situations like this are the most difficult part of his work. Thompson would not address the specific financial challenges that families say they face.
“There are infinite requests from finite resources, we know it is difficult for families that face critical diseases, I know,” he said. “There are a number of programs that we offer and continue in a system financed with public funds to do our best to support patients who access care both in the province and outside the province.”
Thompson said that the point of the allocation outside province is to help with expenses, not to cover them completely.
“We will continue to review that program, to listen to people, we want to answer. But it is not a cost recovery program and we also want to maintain the integrity of the entire system, and I know it is difficult.”
She said that New Scotland is unique compared to other provinces because it covers some of the travel expenses of the support person who should go with the patient.
“We will continue talking to families and listening to them directly, but again I reiterate that it is not cost recovery, it is cost assistance.”
The Clarkes and Brenton-Goguen say they would appreciate the opportunity to sit with the minister or other politicians to share his experience.
“Don would have also wanted changes,” Brenton-Goguen said. “I would have fought right next to Dave and Nan because he believed he was a veteran.
“I also believed that all people should receive the same rights, the same attention, the same access to [care]. I would have fought right by our side. It is definitely a cause in which we all believe. “
