Healthcare in the US saved her from Canada's 'assisted dying' program

A Canadian woman who was seeking death through the nation's Medical Aid in Dying (MAiD) program received a new lease on life when she got the healthcare she needed in the U.S.

Key Takeaways:

• A woman was denied surgical treatment for her condition in Canada and raised her own money to have surgical treatment in Tokyo; Nova Scotia disallowed her from doing so.

• The woman took her case to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, which found that her requests had been denied because she had no referral from a Nova Scotia specialist; the court noted that there was no such specialist in Nova Scotia, and that it was "unreasonable" to deny her care.

• She traveled to New Jersey in the U.S., where she received her needed surgery.

The Backstory:

According to CBC News, 47-year-old Jennifer Brady spent six years fighting with the government of Nova Scotia for surgery to treat her lymphedema, a disease that causes fluid to build up in the body, resulting in painful swelling. After having some of her lymph nodes removed during a radical hysterectomy to treat cervical cancer in 2019, Jennifer suffered from severe swelling in her lower left leg.

However, she could not gain access to treatment and became depressed and unable to care for her two children.

As of 2024, surgical treatment in Canada was only available to residents of Quebec, B.C., and Ontario — and when Jennifer tried to get surgery at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, Quebec, she learned it was not accepting patients from other provinces. She remortgaged her home to afford a $65,000 surgery in Tokyo but that was denied by Nova Scotia.

In 2022, after her care continued to be denied, she took her case to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court. Her requests had been denied repeatedly because she did not have a referral from a Nova Scotia specialist.

Justice Timothy Gabriel said in his Oct. 2024 decision that MSI, the medical insurer for Nova Scotia, would not acknowledge that there is no such specialist in the province. 

Gabriel determined that Jennifer was "treated in a procedurally unfair manner" and that Nova Scotia's decision to deny her care was "unreasonable."

"I've been sitting here adding up the costs for reimbursement, interest on my loan — and it's just money," she said in 2024.

"How does that in any way add up to the deep, deep cost this has had on me, on my children, on my partner and my mother?"

In June 2024, Jennifer applied for MAiD after years of fighting Nova Scotia for care. That's when the clinical lead for the Nova Scotia MAiD program, Dr. Gord Gubitz, sent a letter to the province's health department saying that Jennifer met all of the federal criteria for MAiD except one: that her medical condition be incurable. He told the health department that there are options for her care that should be considered. That's when she was able to find a doctor in the US.

The Details:

In July 2025, Jennifer traveled to The Valley Hospital in Paramus, New Jersey, where she underwent a lymph node transplant. She noticed improvement very quickly, saying she can see her kneecaps for the first time in years and no longer requires the use of a massage machine to help her drain fluid, which she had been using for six hours every day.

There is no definitive cure for lymphedema, and Jennifer's doctor, Dr. Joseph Dayan, said the surgery "doesn't stop the underlying cause of lymphedema, which is overactivation of the immune system, and that causes scarring, accumulation of fat, scar and fluid, and all of these things tend to get worse over time." But he said his patients have seen remarkable improvements, as Jennifer has.

The Bottom Line:

Assisted suicide and euthanasia have become 'easy-outs' for the Canadian government to avoid paying for treatments when it's cheaper to kill patients. Jennifer is just one of many people who became so tired of fighting for health care under Canada's government-run system that she felt dying might have been her best option. Thankfully, she was able to get the true care she needed — but how many others do not?