Tracey Thompson, a Toronto woman in her fifties, caught COVID-19 two years ago but hasn’t yet recovered. She has since been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (a more modern label for
chronic fatigue syndrome),
postural tachycardia syndrome (which causes dizziness and fainting upon standing up), and
mast cell activation syndrome (which causes severe allergic-like responses).
All of these conditions have been observed in cases of long COVID.
Her severe fatigue makes her unable to work. Her newly developed
mold and food sensitivities make finding appropriate housing and preparing meals even more difficult and expensive. The application process for disability payments is complicated. Even with a successful application, the
$1,169 CAD monthly stipend wouldn’t be enough to cover all of her costs. As a result, Thompson has launched a
GoFundMe page to pay for care and housing.
“I won’t be able to maintain housing and I’m not well enough to live on the street,” Thompson told The Daily Beast. With money running low, and no cure for long COVID in the crosshairs, she has applied for
medical assistance in dying, or MAiD. “I don’t understand how a society that supposedly has universal health care gets an international reputation for taking care of its citizenry, when that is obviously not true for poor, disabled people.”