Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the health authority received after the time of publishing.
Forty-two year-old Laval, Que. resident Jessie Putre isn’t shy about showing her mastectomy scar publicly because she says she wants people to see what can happen if they delay getting a mammogram.
“I was actually told, ‘I wouldn’t worry about it, you’re young, you’re healthy,’ ” she says, claiming that’s what her family doctor told her last year when she asked for the exam, given her family’s history.
Then, in the spring of 2024, she found a lump in her right breast. On March 13, she was diagnosed with HER-2 positive, an aggressive and recurring form of cancer. She says her surgeon urged her to get an operation as soon as possible.
“From what they could see in the ultrasound it had started to spread into my lymph nodes,” she told Global News. “I have invasive ductal carcinoma. It had spread like a spider’s web across my breast, nine centimetres horizontally and seven centimetres vertically.”
Given wait times in hospitals, she opted to go to a private clinic and had the mastectomy done within one week.
She went back to the public system to get chemotherapy and radiation in hospital.
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Putre says her medical team recommends Perjeta as an antibody treatment.
Perjeta is the brand name for pertuzumab. According to perjeta.com, “Perjeta is given with another targeted treatment called Herceptin. Both treatments are designed to fight cancer cells that have too many HER2 receptors, but in different ways.”
According to Putre, St. Mary’s hospital refused to cover the cost since she had the surgery before taking the treatment. Now, she says she’s expecting to pay $68,000.
Her good friend, Patricia Sasso, told Global she’s horrified.
“The doctors told Jessie, ‘This is what you do,’ Jessie did it and now she’s penalized for it,” she said. “It’s absolutely inhumane.”
Furthermore, Putre is convinced that had she been eligible to have a mammogram last year, the cancer would’ve been caught earlier, preventing the whole ordeal.
Advocates have been urging health authorities to lower the age for non-referral breast cancer screening to age 40, or even younger, since breast cancer rates have increased in all age groups, according to Karine-Iseult Ippersiel, CEO for the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation.
“The key to breast cancer survival rate at 99 per cent is early detection,” she insists.
In a statement to Global News, the Quebec health ministry says it is exploring whether to lower the non-referral screening age from 50.
“Note that we have mandated the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS) to immediately evaluate the expansion of screening from the age of 40,” the statement reads in part. “Thus, in the event of a positive recommendation from INESSS experts, the program will be expanded to cover this clientele.”
The ministry also notes that earlier this year it expanded the non-referral screening from age 50 to 74, up from 50 to 69.
According to Putre, St. Mary’s hospital offered to cover the cost of another drug, but says her surgeon and medical oncologist prefer giving her Perjeta.
In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson for the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, which oversees St. Mary’s Hospital, writes, “(We) ensure coverage of the cost of pertuzumab under certain specific conditions, in accordance with the criteria established by the RAMQ (Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec) and the CIUSSS. Treatment is generally covered for patients with metastatic HER2+ breast cancer, meeting recommended performance and initial treatment criteria.”
It continues, “The CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal would like to point out that reimbursement for treatment with pertuzumab is strictly regulated by criteria established according to the type and stage of the cancer. Due to our confidentiality obligations, the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Île-de-Montréal cannot comment on specific medical cases.”
Since Putre’s insurance company won’t cover the cost, Sasso has launched a fundraising campaign.
The cancer patient expects to start chemotherapy in one week and says she hopes to help others avoid the same financial hurdles.
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