On Sunday — to celebrate Armenian Christmas — Sevan Hajinian intends to walk into Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church in east Toronto and give thanks to those who made a potentially life-changing back surgery possible.The province of Ontario will not be among them.
Friends and supporters, with the help of the church, raised $120,000 for a Dec. 4 surgery in New York City, which Hajinian says five Canadian spinal surgeons would not touch and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan would not fund.
Hajinian, 52, arrived home on a flight from New York Saturday after a month of recuperating there from surgery to repair the fallout from back surgery performed in Ontario in 1999.
“I want the people at church to see me and that, you know what, I’m in good spirits, and the fundraising that they are doing served its purpose,” said Hajinian, sitting comfortably in the living room of her brother’s home — with a smile on her face that left only when talking of her ordeal in Canada.
Since 2008, Hajinian has had a U.S. doctor’s opinion that she required complex surgery to correct failed fusions and pressure from a bone on a nerve that was affecting use of her right leg. The cost of surgery in the U.S. was too great for her family at the time.
She sought the surgery in Canada, with no success.
Several Canadian doctors told her an operation would not help and that she would have to live with it, she says. Another of the Canadian doctors she consulted said to come back when she was in a wheelchair, says Hajinian, which indeed seemed where she was headed due to nerve damage.
The last Canadian doctor who turned her down, she says, told her the surgery was beyond his abilities and recommended going to New York.
OHIP, which can authorize payment for out-of-country medical treatments, turned down funding. Hajinian appealed to the Health Services Appeal and Review Board.
The Globe and Mail cited documents from that appeal that noted OHIP was of the opinion that the operation was available in Canada, and that no evidence had been shown that a wait would cause Hajinian more harm.
The appeal was unsuccessful.
Hajinian, a mother of two teenage girls, could have taken a further step and appealed in court, but expenses were mounting (the family has spent about $30,000 on legal fees) and her condition was not getting any better.
In constant pain, she was at one point on a morphine pump until a near overdose that was caused by a malfunction, and prior to surgery, on daily doses of Percocet. Emotionally, she was a mess.
The decision was made to go to the Hospital for Joint Diseases at New York University’s Langome Medical Center, where Dr. Frank Schwab was confident the surgery was worth it.
Hajinian and her brother, Aris Babikian, a citizenship judge, rented an apartment in Manhattan, where she could recover until well-enough to fly home.
The final bill has yet to come in, but costs may be higher due to longer than expected surgery time and an extended nine-day hospital stay. The church is continuing to fundraise and has posted information online.
Hajinian and her brother were amazed by the level of care and both feel her case highlights a major problem with health care in Ontario and Canada.
Despite a petition and campaign to get her help, including pleas to MPs, MPPs and a package Babikian personally delivered to Premier Dalton McGuinty, the system, in this case, did not deliver in a timely fashion, says Babikian.
“We never heard anything from them,” said Babikian.
With all of the money spent on health care in Canada, they don’t comprehend why they had to put so much effort — for so long — into a futile hunt for specialized help in Canada.
The quest for care has taken a toll. Her husband suffered a minor stroke and caring for her has stressed the extended family.
“We don’t want any more Ontarians to live through the hell that we lived through for the last 13 years,” said Babikan. “Why do we need to put hard-working Ontarians and their families through, to be honest, what is emotional terrorism by our own government. This is not a third-world country where you hear of such stories.”
If all goes as hoped with her recovery, the money spent on her surgery may actually save Canadian taxpayers the added long term health care and other costs that Hajinian most likely would have racked up without the surgery.
“Our health care system needs a serious revision, serious reform,” said Babikian. “I don’t understand how these bureaucrats make these decisions.”
Hajinian says she heard from more than one Canadian doctor that the U.S. doctors would do the surgery just for the money.
“But why would they risk their reputation for a $30,000 surgery?” wondered Hajinian. “It wasn’t for the money. They provided the service and they were concerned.”
(Her U.S. health care bill, which was reduced, includes additional fees for hospital services and other surgical costs.)
Within two days of the surgery, which lasted more than seven hours, Hajinian says she knew that things had changed for the better.
She had improved feeling in her right leg and foot. She can now sit in a chair for longer than 15 minutes, something that would not have happened before. Before surgery, she was on Percocet for pain control. She no longer needs the narcotic.
“Finally, I feel great,” said Hajinian. “I wasn’t expecting that I would feel the difference right after the surgery.”
While she must use a walker for a while for stability and ensure proper healing, she is thinking about working again, something she has not been able to do since 1999, when she managed a dental office.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Jim Rankin
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