Sunday, April 26, 2009

Second-class citizens

From the Fredericton (NB) Telegraph Journal:
David Lyon is painfully aware of one of the cruelest facts of life in New Brunswick - you do not want to be seriously ill in this place.

It's a wry twist on New Brunswick's much-ballyhooed tourism slogan, "Be ... in this place."

Lyon is dying of incurable brain cancer and like many other seriously ill people in New Brunswick, he feels trapped in a province bewilderingly out of step with the rest of the country.

Just out of reach in other parts of Canada are life-lengthening drugs people can afford and compassionate services designed to ease the economic and emotional burden of catastrophic illness.

But not here. In this place, the road to better health, to the sweet promise of longer life, is paved with catch-22s. ...more

No comments: