Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the health authority received after the time of publication.
Forty-two-year-old Laval, Que. Resident Jessie Putre isn’t ashamed to show her mastectomy scar publicly because she says she wants people to see what can happen if they delay mammograms.
“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 ordered the exam, given the situation of his family.
Then, in the spring of 2024, she found a lump in her right breast. On March 13, he was diagnosed with HER-2 positive, an aggressive and recurrent form of cancer. She says her surgeon urged her to have surgery as soon as possible.
“From what they could see on the ultrasound, it had started to spread to my lymph nodes,” he told Global News. “I have invasive ductal carcinoma. It had spread like a spider’s web across my chest, nine centimeters horizontally and seven centimeters vertically.”
Given the waiting times at hospitals, she chose to go to a private clinic and had the mastectomy done within a week.
He returned to the public system for chemotherapy and radiation at the hospital.
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Putre says his medical team recommends Perjeta as an antibody treatment.
Perjeta is the brand name for pertuzumab. According to toperjeta.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, the hospital of St. Mary refused to cover the cost since she had surgery before receiving treatment. Now, he says he expects to pay $68,000.
Her good friend, Patricia Sasso, told Global she is horrified.
“The doctors told Jessie, ‘This is what you do,’ Jessie did it and now she’s being punished for it,” he said. “It’s absolutely inhumane.”
In addition, Putre is convinced that if she had been eligible for a mammogram last year, the cancer would have been detected earlier, avoiding the whole ordeal.
According to Karine-Iseult Ippersiel, director general of the Quebec Breast Cancer Foundation, advocates have called on health authorities to lower the age for non-referral breast cancer screening to 40, or even younger, as breast cancer rates have increased in all age groups.
“The key to the 99% breast cancer survival rate is early detection,” she insists.
In a statement to Global News, Quebec’s health ministry says it is exploring whether to lower the non-referral screening age of 50.
“Please note that we have instructed the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS) to immediately evaluate the expansion of screening from age 40,” the statement read in part. “Thus, in the event of a positive recommendation from the INESSS experts, the program will be expanded to cover this clientele.”
The ministry also notes that at the beginning of this year it extended the non-referral control from 50 to 74 years, from 50 to 69.
According to Putre, the hospital of St. Mary offered to cover the cost of another drug, but says her surgeon and medical oncologist prefer to give her Perjeta.
In a statement to Global News, a spokesperson for CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’le-de-Montral, which oversees Hospital St. Mary, writes: “(We) insure coverage of the cost of pertuzumab under certain certain conditions, in accordance with the criteria established by the RAMQ (Rgie de l’assurance maladie du Qubec) and the CIUSSS. The treatment is generally covered by to patients with HER2+ metastatic breast cancer, meeting recommended performance and initial treatment criteria.”
He continues: “The CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’le-de-Montral would like to point out that the reimbursement of treatment with pertuzumab is strictly regulated by criteria established according to the type and stage of the cancer. Due to our confidentiality obligations, CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’le-de-Montral 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 hopes to start chemotherapy in a week and says he hopes to help others avoid the same financial hurdles.
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