It's so heartbreaking! A 27-year-old Asian female student in Ontario has died of cancer!
And her medical experience before her death made her family feel that international students in Canada are like second-class citizens!
Saandra Salim's family and friends allege that an Ontario hospital delayed notifying Salim of his biopsy results for eight months, resulting in the cancer not being timely** and rapidly spreading to the 27-year-old international student's liver, spine and uterus.
Salim's family said the international student at Conestoga College went to Grand River Hospital in Kitchener, Ontario, in October 2022 to report stomach pain and bloating.
They misdiagnosed her and asked her to take medication for ** gas problems," Salim's husband, Hrisheekesh Sudarshan, said in an interview.
In November 2022, when Salim went to the hospital again with severe abdominal pain and bloating, surgeons removed a 27cm ovarian cyst for her. After the surgery, Salim repeatedly emailed and ** asked the hospital for her cancer test report, but never received that report.
A few months later, in June 2023, Salim went to the hospital again with severe back pain and told doctors about her surgery history and the inability to get cancer test results.
Instead of looking up Salim's medical records in the system, they gave her Tylenol and recommended a physical **,Sudarshan said.
Grand River Hospital said in a statement that under Ontario's health care system, when a laboratory finds abnormal test or biopsy results, those results are shared with the patient's physician care team for follow-up of the patient.
They said Grand River Hospital also follows this standard process when processing pathology results in the laboratory. However, citing the requirements of the Personal Health Information Protection**, they did not comment on the SALIM situation form and did not provide any further information.
However, it was not until July 29, 2023, when Salim returned to the emergency room of the same hospital after being unable to walk due to a fall, that the biopsy results were released. Her mother, Smitha Saleem, said Salim waited eight hours to see a doctor.
That day in the hospital, my daughter was in great pain," Saleem said in an interview in India. "I could only see her rolling in pain through ** calls, which was unbearable. ”
That last test, Sudarshan said, found that the cancer had spread severely. "The doctor told Salim that she had only a few weeks left to live. Only then did we know that Salim had cancer. ”
If doctors and hospital staff had told us about the biopsy results soon after the procedure, she could have lived a better quality of life with less trauma and pain. ”
Salim's family claims that they have experienced multiple incidents of medical negligence during their acceptance of ** and that the family is considering legal action.
After undergoing spine surgery at Grand River Hospital in August 2023, Salim returned to India for further ** and after four months of cancer**, she passed away on January 11.
My daughter's biggest hobby is dancing, but her legs lose their ability to move in the first place," Salim's mom said with tears streaming down her face. "We sent Salim to Canada, thinking we were sending her to a safe country. ”
Sooraj Venugopal, secretary of the Samanwaya Cultural Association in Toronto and member of the Saandra Justice Coordinating Committee, initiated the changeorg** activity.
*The book calls for a full investigation into the medical services received by Salim.
In Salim's case, it was a clear case of medical negligence and was treated as a second-class citizen just because she was an international student," he said.
We don't even know if Grand River Hospital has her biopsy results on file. All we know is that this was delayed for 8 months. This is a terrible mistake. ”
Initially, Grand River hospital staff claimed that they had destroyed the documents. This happened after Salim's family complained to the hospital's Patient Relations department about the delay in biopsy results. Subsequently, after they pressed again and requested a written statement that the records had been destroyed, the staff provided the biopsy results.
Salim was dying, they didn't tell her about the biopsy results for eight months, and after she lost all faith in Canadian health care, she asked for records so she could travel to India for receiving**. However, they are trying to stop it," Venugopal said. International students in Ontario pay for health insurance through a Canadian college or university, but not all schools provide health insurance, and health insurance may not cover all medical benefits. Students also do not have family doctors.
Ashika Niraula, a senior research fellow and program leader at Toronto Metropolitan University, said international students should have the same access to health care as other residents of the country.
It's time for us to start talking about inequalities in access to health care for international students or temporary residents," said Niraula. "We talk about college income, we talk about the housing crisis. But we often forget about international students and their health care. ”
There are now more than one million international students studying in Canada. According to the Global Affairs Report, in 2018, international students spent $22.3 billion on tuition, accommodation, and discretionary expenses in Canada.
According to a report by the Association for Higher Education Strategy, about 76 per cent of tuition fees paid by Ontario universities come from international students. The report also states that by the 2023-2024 academic year, students from India alone will generate $2 billion in revenue for Ontario universities.
Salim's husband said that from 2021 to 2023, Salim spent $35,500 on tuition fees in Canada.
International students are increasingly seen as the highly skilled workers of the future," said Niraula. Canada** is creating pathways for them to apply for a post-graduate work visa, then obtain permanent residency and eventually citizenship. "So it's ridiculous to deny them access to universal health care. ”