Nunavut woman seeks help online for southern medical expenses

Janice Simailak has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the site GoFundMe to help cover expenses she is incurring while receiving cancer treatment in Toronto. (PHOTO COURTESY OF JANICE SIMAILAK)

A Baker Lake woman receiving treatment for cancer in Toronto is seeking help from the public to meet expenses.

Janice Simailak has launched a crowdfunding campaign on the site GoFundMe to cover some of the expenses that she, her husband and son must pay out-of-pocket in Toronto.

These expenses are not covered, she said, because she’s being treated outside Edmonton, Winnipeg or Montreal, where the Government of Nunavut maintains medical health care agreements with local hospitals for Nunavut Inuit medical care.

Simailak flew to Toronto in October 2014, where she found out she suffered from cancer.

Simailak said she went there after asking for medical help in Nunavut for many months.

“It was a long waiting game for me and I had enough of the waiting game,” Simailak said.

Simailak said Nunavut health workers told her “to go online to find out what’s wrong with me.”

This fundraising effort is for her and “for those who are providing compassionate care for me during this ongoing battle against cancer,” she said on her GoFundMe page.

Simailak hopes to raise $12,000. As of April 16, two days after posting her plea, she had raised $725.

“As you can understand this is a very stressful period. Any assistance to relieve the financial stress on my family and I would be sincerely appreciated,” she says on her GoFundMe page.

Simailak is the second Nunavut Inuk recently seeking assistance with medical costs through GoFundMe.

A Gjoa Haven man undergoing treatment for cancer at an Edmonton hospital has also turned to online crowdfunding for money to help reunite his family.

Bradley Ikkutisluk said he has hardly seen his two daughters since his two sons got sick in 2012, and ended up hospitalized in Edmonton.

Nunatsiaq News contacted the GN’s health department for comment about its policies on medical treatment for Nunavut residents in the South, but has not yet received a reply.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising money for a project or venture by soliciting contributions from a large number of people, typically via the internet.

Many northerners are turning to online crowdfunding for everything from field trips to hockey tournaments.

GoFundMe, one of several online crowdfunding sites, says its site users have raised more than $790 million.

Many of its success stories involve fundraising for people who are in need of medical treatment or equipment.

GoFundMe takes five per cent of each donation received, while the WePay service fee is 2.9 per cent plus $0.30 per donation.