Thanks to her partner's employer, Christine had good medical coverage but would only receive long-term disability after 2 years. Additional costs such as parking were having an impact.

Transcript

Devastating in the… okay how do I context this? As a professional as somebody who wants to earn her own way in the world, this has been so problematic, because the assumptions underlying all of this is that somebody else will look after you, specifically your partner. And as much as he’s a lovely man and he earns a good wage and he’s got really good health benefits, that is the only reason why I was able to do what I did. I can’t even imagine if I had to do this alone I would actually have to pull out… what was the comment that was made to me when they were telling me that I’m not eligible for long extended… “Well you need to use up all of your RRSPs and then we’ll start.” I’m like “Are you insane? if I do that then are you going to look after me when I’m 65 years old? Don’t be ridiculous.” The CPP long-term disability, two reasons you have to be away for 2 years and you have to be either dead or dying and that’s the only time that they will kick in. I’m like “uh, uh okay I can’t go back to work… hello! I do need… and I’m not telling you to give me a thousand, hundred thousand dollars a month, even a small percentage a few hundred dollars just to pay for…just to have enough money, I don’t know for parking to the tune of about $20 a time. Who’s going to pay for this? Am I going to pay for this or are you going pay for this?

Unbelievable! So, I’ve been fighting it to make a point to say folks you are making so many assumptions. If I go to the Cross, 4 or 5 hour session, how many dollars do I have to pay including all the follow-up, all of the doctors’ appointments, where you have to actually put in money and you could be sitting there for hours and hours in the emergency. 4, 5, 6, 7 hours to the tune of $30 to 40 a shot for hospital parking.

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