Chesterfield woman continues battle with health department
Darrell Greer
Northern News Services
Chesterfield Inlet (May 02/01) - Jodie Tanuyak will have to go to court if she's to get help from the Nunavut Government to have a baby.
The Chesterfield Inlet woman has been battling the Department of Health since suffering a tubal pregnancy in October 1995.
She says she was initially misdiagnosed by staff at the Chesterfield Inlet Health Centre. She then went to the Rankin Inlet Health Centre for a second opinion and they medevaced her to Churchill and then to Winnipeg where she underwent emergency surgery.
Tanuyak says she never fully recovered from the incident and had the fallopian tube and ovary on her left side removed last August.
"There's a lot of emotional pain involved because my chances of getting pregnant have been so greatly diminished," says Tanuyak.
"I've been going to the health board for help ever since 1996 and all I've ever been told is that it's still under investigation. They've denied me any type of help in getting pregnant again."
Assistant deputy minister, Dr. Keith Best says Tanuyak first raised her complaint in 1999. He adds her request for help to conceive was turned down by Health Canada.
"She met with me again last year and I told her if she really feels the reason why she can't have babies is a result of the treatment she received in Chester, she should take this to court," says Best. "There's nothing I can do further. We've done everything we can."
Best says his department reviewed Tanuyak's case and asked Health Canada to pay for in vitro fertilization therapy, which was denied.
He says even if his department tracked down the medical personnel involved with the case, there would be nothing it could enforce.
"Were we to pursue this and realize as an end result there was doctor or nurse error, it still wouldn't go anywhere.
There's no legitimate complaint we could make to their regulatory body, so it's really in the hands of the complainant -- who believes a wrong hasn't been righted and she has suffered -- to take the next step and say 'I'm taking you people to court.'
"If she were to do that, it would be the Nunavut Government's Department of Health and Social Services's responsibility to deal with it.
She would actually be suing the government and the players who were part of her care.
