‘I felt hopeless’: Long gynecological wait times push N.S. woman to seek U.S. surgery

Nova Scotia’s opposition leader points to a lack of resources for women’s health and calls for change.

A Nova Scotia woman says she felt she had no choice but to leave the country to get the timely medical care she desperately needed.

Cassidy Walker shared her long struggle with accessing gynecological care in Halifax, describing years of physical and emotional pain while on a waitlist seeking specialized medical care for what she described as extreme pelvic pain brought on from endometriosis.

“I felt hopeless,” said Walker. “I felt like there was no escape from the pain.”

Walker says her family doctor first referred her to see a gynecological specialist at the IWK Health Centre in 2019 and, despite several other referrals from her physician, she’s still been unable to see a specialist in Nova Scotia.

In 2023, as her symptoms worsened and her daily life became more challenging, she decided to travel to Maine and undergo a surgical procedure for endometriosis, which cost her more than $50,000 out of pocket.

“Everyone who needs this surgery should be able to get it in Nova Scotia,” said Walker. “No one should have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get treatment, and women shouldn’t be stuck on a waitlist because there just aren’t enough resources.”

Opposition Leader Claudia Chender stood alongside Walker at a news conference the NDP organized in Halifax Wednesday, calling on the Progressive Conservative government to develop a comprehensive women’s health strategy.

“Health-care issues facing women and gender-diverse people are just not being addressed,” said Chender. “And so, the promise to fix health care, there’s not even an attempt to keep that promise when it comes to the most serious conditions facing half of our population.”

Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Iain Rankin echoed the call for a women’s health strategy.

The Liberals are calling on the PC government to fund all pelvic floor physiotherapy costs for Nova Scotians, saying the average $150 cost for an appointment is often not covered by provincial health insurance.

“We believe that’s essential care that the government should be providing,” said Rankin. “When care that could prevent pain, surgery, and long-term complications isn’t affordable, the system isn’t working as it should.”

Although Walker says she’s feeling much better since the surgical procedure, she’s still frustrated with the health system in Nova Scotia and the long waits that many face.

“My experience has been extremely difficult with long waits and no answers,” she said.

She hopes that sharing her story will help drive positive changes and improve timely access to care.

Survey aims to find the issues in women’s health care

Dr. Justine Dol, the accelerate research chair in Women’s Health at the IWK says there needs to be better discussions around access to care for women.

“How do we access care in and around menopause, how do we better support people who are experiencing a mental health crisis, so we’re really looking at a wide range of health concerns because we know the most important questions about women’s health in the Maritimes have yet to be studied,” said Dol in an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis.

Dol pointed to a recent survey which aimed to identify the gaps and unanswered questions in women’s health and work on finding solutions.

“I think accessing care in a timely matter is something that I imagine will come up in the survey of one of the things that people want to know is how could we reduce the wait times for these things so that we don’t have to wait as long to get diagnosis and treatments.

She says there needs to be a more open discussion around women’s health.

“Too often we know that research priorities are decided without the input of the people who are most affected and impacted so we really want to change that, so we really want to hear from not only women who experience these health concerns but also their partners and people who love them because they are also impacted when women’s health is impacted.”

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