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Letter: Health care spending all backwards

We are talking thousands of dollars now not to mention more time off work, more anaesthetic and more wounds to heal.

To the editor:

My wife survived breast cancer.

It was a year of hell to get to this point as, in addition to cancer treatment, she endured three large surgeries, two of which were mastectomies done several months apart, leaving her with very large scars across her chest.

Recently she went to a local store to acquire prosthesis. The prosthetic breasts are quite expensive with a pair costing $800 to $900.

Elated at feeling normal again, my wife’s joy was obliterated when she couldn’t have them because Pharmacare wouldn’t pay for them. They said we hadn’t met our annual deductible of $3,000. We had only spent $358 thus far.

It’s unlikely we’ll make it to the deduction limit and we don’t have the cash to purchase them ourselves.

Now, if my wife wanted to have breast reconstruction, that would be 100 per cent paid for through MSP. It would be multiple surgeries involving insertion of tissue expanders and implants etc.

How much does each surgery and the hospital stay cost? We are talking thousands of dollars now not to mention more time off work, more anaesthetic and more wounds to heal. My wife doesn’t want any more surgery.

It boggles my mind how this government spends our healthcare dollars. Why not pay a few hundred dollars for a woman to have the “ foobs” for free and away she goes. But no, what’s free is multiple thousands of dollars in surgery and multiple weeks of down time.

These are your healthcare dollars. How backwards is that?

Cory Baillie,

Kelowna