Montreal-area nurse and mother of 3 says high cost of a service dog is holding her back

A Montreal-area nurse who has Ehlers–Danlos syndrome needs a service dog but has to pay $35,000 to get one.

For Josee St-Onge, tasks as simple as preparing a meal can become a painful endeavour because she suffers from a disease called Ehlers–Danlos syndrome, a form of hypermobility disorder.

“Most people think of hypermobility as just a joint instability issue,” explained the mother of three.

“But in fact it encompasses so much more. So a lot of us are affected neurologically, with our digestion, skin issues, difficulty managing our blood pressure, our temperature. And of course, the biggest issue is damage from all the instability in the joints over time.”

Something as simple as opening a door or bumping into someone can lead to joints dislocating.

“I don’t have any ligaments supporting my wrist and most of my fingers are very, very mobile, so they tend to pop out very easily.”

St-Onge, who is a registered nurse, works part-time from home, interacting with patients. But what she says she needs the most is a service dog that could help her with her mobility.

“The first thing is to really minimize the impact of my day-to-day on my hands and try to preserve as much mobility and strength as possible,” explains St-Onge.

“So she’ll be helping me. You know, open doors, open my stove, my fridge. So she’s trained to be able to go get my phone, go get me water, retrieve dropped items.”

Quebec’s two agencies that provide service dogs are overwhelmed with the demand from people with physical or mental conditions. The normal wait time would be at least two years. But right now, they’re not even accepting new applications.

“You know, it breaks our heart to receive all these calls, to receive all these emails and that we just can’t help. We feel helpless at times,” said John Agionicolaitis from the Asista foundation, which provides dogs for people suffering from PTSD, anxiety and other mental-health issues.

The cost is also prohibitive without the backing of a charity. The MIRA Foundation tries to provide service dogs at no cost to those in need. But the financing isn’t large enough to provide a dog to everyone who needs it.

“We calculate our dogs in the average of all of our programs. So we estimate it at, like, $35,000, but I think now we should say more. So it’s really, really expensive,” explained Aurelie Tremblay from the MIRA Foundation.

St-Onge did find help at the Summit Assistance Dogs Center in Medicine Hat, Alberta. But she can’t afford the $35,000 investment. Despite having a job, she had to turn to the public for help.

“I’m very disappointed in the lack of access for me, especially for people with invisible disabilities. It’s so hard to access any type of support or funding from the government. And the reality is our expenses are so much higher than the average person, you know, because each month we have specific medications or mobility aids or we have to take more time off work to go see a specialist.”

With the help of the community in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, she has managed to raise half the amount needed, which includes the trip to Alberta’s training centre.

“Over the past six months, we’ve held music events, we’ve held trivia nights online, raffles, we’ve had the GoFundMe link that’s been live. We’ve been really working hard to try to get my story out there. And that’s what’s brought us almost $18,000 so far.”

And if St-Onge can come up with the balance, she says she’ll be able to once again have a resemblance to a normal life.