Posted by
Defend America on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 5:12:07 PM
Via Ed Morrisey:
Sick man faces bankruptcy — or death
Cancer patient must pay for drug needed to keep him alive
By MARK BONOKOSKI, Toronto Sun
Kent Pankow lives in Edmonton, in a province and a country that is trying to either kill him or bankrupt him.
No sense mincing words.
Suffering from brain cancer, Kent Pankow was literally forced to go
to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. for lifesaving surgery — at a
cost to family and friends of $106,000 — after the health-care system
in Alberta left him hanging in bureaucratic limbo for 16 crucial days,
his tumour meanwhile migrating to an unreachable part of the brain,
while it dithered over his case file, ultimately deciding he was not
surgery worthy.
Now, with the Mayo Clinic having done what the Alberta Cancer Board
wouldn’t authorize or even explain, but with the tumour unable to be
totally removed, the province will now not fund the expensive drug,
Avastin, that the Mayo prescribed to keep him alive and keep the
remaining tumour from increasing in size — despite the costs of the
drug being totally funded by the province for other forms of cancer.