Judith John was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour almost two decades ago. Before one of many MRI appointments, she was sitting in a room waiting for her name to be called — but it didn’t happen.
Instead, a technician stepped through the door, looked down at her sheet and read out, “Brain tumour?”
It was an accumulation of experiences like this that transformed John into what she calls an “accidental patient advocate.”
“That moment in the waiting room was a symptom of a system that doesn’t look up and take you in,” says John, who worked in communications at several Toronto hospitals before she got sick.
“Once you put on that blue hospital gown, you become a file, a bunch of symptoms. I just wanted to be treated like a person.”
Full article at: National Post