CALGARY – As a physician at Calgary’s Mosaic Refugee Clinic, Dr. Annalee Coakley is used to helping patients in difficult situations. But she considers Joseph Bernard’s case particularly bleak.
“He has terminal cancer, he’s palliative, ” she explained. “He’s too sick to return back to Pakistan, yet he doesn’t have any coverage for health services.”
Bernard was healthy when he came to Canada with his family in 2012. He says as Christians, his family suffered religious persecution in Pakistan. He filed a refugee claim and then he got sick.
“In July, 2013 it was diagnosed that I had cancer,” Bernard says.
In Canada, refugee claimants receive health care coverage while their claims are being considered, but if that claim is denied, all benefits end.
An immigration and refugee board decision rejected Bernard’s claim because it found, “no substantial grounds to believe that his removal to Pakistan would subject him to a danger of torture.”
With advanced stage liver cancer, Coakley estimates Bernard has six to 12 months left in his life. She says without medical care those months will be filled with pain.
“My fear is horrible suffering for him,” she said.
“It’s a very, very difficult situation and I’ve appealed to the minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada to see if there is anything we can do to provide him with some coverage for the last months of his life.”
Global News contacted Citizenship and Immigration Canada for comment on Bernard’s case. They have not yet responded to our request.
READ MORE: Giving refugees a healthy start in Canada
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