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Help Suzanne Aucoin
Nov. 14, 2005 - Ontario Legislative Meeting
CANCER TREATMENT
Mr. Cameron Jackson (Burlington): My question is for the Minister of Health. On
October 17, Suzanne Aucoin from St. Catharines and 21 other cancer patients
attended question period. I asked a question seeking your support for their cancer
treatments in Ontario. Since then, Suzanne Aucoin has been rejected twice by your
government. It took your government two days to reject her application for
out-of-province coverage for life-saving intravenous chemotherapy treatment. She is
maxing out her Visa card to simply stay alive to receive these treatments near Buffalo.
My question to you, Minister: Why isn't your ministry working with this young woman
to help save her life?
Hon. George Smitherman (Minister of Health and Long-Term Care): The government of
Ontario, through its agency Cancer Care Ontario, is working actively every day to save
the lives of people with cancer. This has included, of course, significant new
investments in regional cancer centres and a more than 1,000% increase in new cancer
drug funding. These, I think, speak of our commitment to addressing issues that people
have related to cancer.
There will be circumstances when people seek treatments that are made available in
other parts of the world. In accordance with that, the Health Services Appeal and
Review Board is involved to offer appeals on any decisions related to out-of-province
coverage. It has always been the case that there are treatments available in the world
that the government of Ontario is or has not been in a position to fund. As we rely on
scientific evidence as the basis for these decisions, I continue to rely on people like
that for advice.
Mr. Jackson: I think Suzanne Aucoin came to Queen's Park today, as she is in the
gallery, trying to seek support from her Minister of Health. You see, her application
for out-of-province coverage, containing some 25 pages, also included an article in the
Mississauga News of July 13, wherein one Mario Codispoti is getting treatment -- the
exact same treatment for the exact same cancer. He's having it paid for by your
ministry, and yet Suzanne Aucoin's was rejected.
This is what the Codispoti family said about this process: "The whole process is
absolutely disgusting and criminal. What the government is doing is deciding if people
live or if they die."
Minister, we know of four cases where you're paying for treatment in Buffalo. We
would ask you again, why are bureaucrats in your ministry deciding that Mario should
live and that Suzanne should die?
Hon. Mr. Smitherman: I suppose it's very nice to offer some suggestion that it's
bureaucrats. But the honourable member, who served as an associate minister in this
very same ministry, understands the process well. He knows that the process is one
that, like in many other ways related to the delivery of health care services, involves
scientific advice. Accordingly, not all treatments are well suited to the same
individuals, not all presentations are identical, and science is used to determine these
very, very difficult circumstances. I'm very happy to take up the suggestion that the
honourable member offers to try to help determine if that's the case, as I believe it is.
But I do think that it has been a long-standing circumstance in our province that we
have depended upon clinical advice to guide us in these very, very important
decisions. That is the case that has been followed in this circumstance, but at the
honourable member's suggestion, we will take it up again.
CANCER TREATMENT
Mr. Cameron Jackson (Burlington): My question is for the Minister of Health. On
October 17, Suzanne Aucoin from St. Catharines and 21 other cancer patients
attended question period. I asked a question seeking your support for their cancer
treatments in Ontario. Since then, Suzanne Aucoin has been rejected twice by your
government. It took your government two days to reject her application for
out-of-province coverage for life-saving intravenous chemotherapy treatment. She is
maxing out her Visa card to simply stay alive to receive these treatments near Buffalo.
My question to you, Minister: Why isn't your ministry working with this young woman
to help save her life?
Hon. George Smitherman (Minister of Health and Long-Term Care): The government of
Ontario, through its agency Cancer Care Ontario, is working actively every day to save
the lives of people with cancer. This has included, of course, significant new
investments in regional cancer centres and a more than 1,000% increase in new cancer
drug funding. These, I think, speak of our commitment to addressing issues that people
have related to cancer.
There will be circumstances when people seek treatments that are made available in
other parts of the world. In accordance with that, the Health Services Appeal and
Review Board is involved to offer appeals on any decisions related to out-of-province
coverage. It has always been the case that there are treatments available in the world
that the government of Ontario is or has not been in a position to fund. As we rely on
scientific evidence as the basis for these decisions, I continue to rely on people like
that for advice.
Mr. Jackson: I think Suzanne Aucoin came to Queen's Park today, as she is in the
gallery, trying to seek support from her Minister of Health. You see, her application
for out-of-province coverage, containing some 25 pages, also included an article in the
Mississauga News of July 13, wherein one Mario Codispoti is getting treatment -- the
exact same treatment for the exact same cancer. He's having it paid for by your
ministry, and yet Suzanne Aucoin's was rejected.
This is what the Codispoti family said about this process: "The whole process is
absolutely disgusting and criminal. What the government is doing is deciding if people
live or if they die."
Minister, we know of four cases where you're paying for treatment in Buffalo. We
would ask you again, why are bureaucrats in your ministry deciding that Mario should
live and that Suzanne should die?
Hon. Mr. Smitherman: I suppose it's very nice to offer some suggestion that it's
bureaucrats. But the honourable member, who served as an associate minister in this
very same ministry, understands the process well. He knows that the process is one
that, like in many other ways related to the delivery of health care services, involves
scientific advice. Accordingly, not all treatments are well suited to the same
individuals, not all presentations are identical, and science is used to determine these
very, very difficult circumstances. I'm very happy to take up the suggestion that the
honourable member offers to try to help determine if that's the case, as I believe it is.
But I do think that it has been a long-standing circumstance in our province that we
have depended upon clinical advice to guide us in these very, very important
decisions. That is the case that has been followed in this circumstance, but at the
honourable member's suggestion, we will take it up again.