"Orphaned" by the Bariatric system?

A manager for one of the Bariatric Centres of Excellence in Ontario straight up told me I was "orphaned" by the system and I'm really not sure what course of action to take. I'll mulled this over for a lengthy period of time and procrastinated about it due to the overwhelming nature of wading through red tape of the healthcare system. It was a struggle to get surgery in the first place and the thought of having to do this all over again wasn't something I was keen to do.

I haven't done absolutely nothing, but it seems any avenue I had tried never came back with any results. One manager told me of a clinic that I applied to twice and after 3-5 months each time the clinic called and said "Sorry sir, you've applied to the wrong section. Try again.". After the second time I gave up on that.

It was my understanding when I was doing through the motions in Hamilton to get approval for my DS conversion that Dr. Hong's office would keep me on for post-op care as he was the one who signed off on me going to Dr. Gagner in Montreal feeling that the more experienced surgeon would be better suited for me (my BMI/weight were still fairly high at the time).

Not long after the surgery I had been informed that my file was transferred to TWH, but no one there was performing the DS and I requested that I be transferred back to St. Joe's. The transfer never happened and eventually I was told I was orphaned.

After both surgeries I received absolutely no post-op care in Ontario. While I have a great family doctor he is not versed in bariatric matters so he can't catch issues that might be important.

Financially I've struggled and this meant having to cut corners. My diet included things that didn't exactly sit well with me, and my vitamin regiment consisted of a multi-vitamin, some vitamin D, occasionally some B12 and some calcium. I have never received a complete DS blood panel as a number of the tests are not OHIP covered in the blood labs at clinics.

Constant fatigue, muscle weakness, memory impairment, lack of focus/concentration, peripheral neuropathy, etc. are all things I am dealing with and none were present prior to June 2012 (when I had my DS). I tried to find some sort of help with vitamin/supplement costs figuring there had to be special cir****tances where funding might be available as they were necessary for me. That turned up nothing.

It was a news story that got the ball rolling for my to get surgery in the first place. Not sure I want to go that route for this, but it might be my only option. Legal options I don't even want to think about, because while the vitamin issue is present during pre-op assessment cir****tances can change and you'd think that special cir****tances would exist when it proven medically with doctor support that you can't get the nutritional benefits of key vitamins through diet alone.

My apologies for the long winded post. Basically my TL;DR is trying to see if anyone might have been in a similar cir****tance where they had surgery out of province/country and weren't being given follow-up care until they raised a stink about it?

This aside, I also wanted to say hello to those that may remember me. I tend to go MIA/AWOL, but usually find my way back here eventually.

Jeff,

Hey buddy - just read your PM.  I think contacting the Ombudsman for assistance is in order.

Hey Karen,

That is one avenue I did not explore. Probably due to lack of help with another issue I brought up to them a couple years ago. Thanks for the suggestion.

Despite having a ****ton of red tape to likely bust through, I think you're at a point where you're going to have to push - and likely should have done so a couple of years back, but hey... hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Time for a telephone and email barrage to the Ombudsman, the Ontario Health Minister, the Bariatric Network and anyone else's email/phone you can get your hands on.

Perhaps I should have been much more assertive or not taken no as a suitable answer.

I can't tell you how many emails, phone calls or letters I sent over the years. I have contacted the now former Minister of Health's office as well as their constituency office numerous times and received nothing besides the generic responses.

Really the only thing I can do that I haven't before is state I have physician support to back a legal claim against the province and hope that it is taken seriously enough to warrant some action.

I don't like making threats, but it seems to be about the only way the government will lift a finger these days.

What about the media.  There has been a lot of news items over the past year or so regarding surgery etc and it does seem to be more of a news item.  I am sure there may be someone who covers health either for the papers or tv that may be interested in your story and that in turn may get you some responses from those who could help you.   Although you may not want your entire life put out there like that just thought that maybe it was an idea. 

His entire life was already put out there. LOL

As Karen has said I put myself out there (more than I ever would have at that time).

I am willing to do what it takes if it ends up getting me some results, because so far nothing has worked - or rather the polite Jeff approach hasn't worked. As Karen put it I'm going to have to be assertive and not take no for an answer.

Please tell me you live in Rob Ford's ward. Because I think he would be a rather determined advocate with health-related issues, considering what he's recently been through. And it would be fun. LOL

Nope. I live in Bowmanville now, which might be a step up from Oshawa, although Oshawa has an NDP at the MPP level and I believe Bowmanville might be Liberal.

It would have been interesting if Ford did represent me. I was one of his supporters (I don't care what you do on your own time, as long as you get stuff done in the office). He wasn't perfect, but he was better than many other politicians if you take the antics and the drugs out of the equation, heh.