Gary Shuster suffers from a rare metabolic condition that requires constant monitoring by a doctor or he could suffer kidney damage and be hospitalized for weeks. “It’s another one of those invisible diseases. Even for someone who specializes in neuromuscular diseases, they often haven’t seen someone with this particular mutation. So you need a doctor who will actually help the team of experts,” Shuster said. When his family doctor in downtown Vancouver closed his practice and a program for high-risk patients told him it could be six months before he even heard about a possible replacement, Shuster panicked. “Six months with a condition where your muscles start to break down and potentially cause kidney failure… six months is too long. Six weeks is too long,” he said. She recalled seeing media reports about an elderly woman in Vancouver who found her family doctor husband by placing an ad in her local paper. Shuster decided to do the same, but took it a step further. His ad in Monday’s Vancouver Sun offered a $5,000 “finding fee” to anyone who could connect him with a family doctor who would take him on with his condition. While doctors can’t pay for taking on new patients, Shuster figured the cash incentive for a successful referral might help his chances. But to his surprise, no one who answered the ad wanted that reward. “I’ve had a lot of people contact me and most of them have said on (the) front line I’m not interested in the money, I have no desire to take it, but here’s someone you might want to talk to, here’s a lead Shuster said. Thanks to this ad, he has now found a family doctor who is willing to take him on. “It was so reassuring, I’m going to be taken care of,” Shuster said. “I don’t know what the disease will do to me in the future, but at least I know it won’t be because people don’t understand or I can’t see a doctor when I know I need to. “ While she didn’t end up paying the $5,000 reward, she doesn’t think anyone should be desperate enough to find a family doctor to consider it. “The fact is, not everyone can afford to take out an ad. Not everyone can afford to pay a bonus. And we all paid for that care with our taxes anyway,” Shuster said. He is a dual citizen who left the US in part because he wanted to return to Canada for universal health care. Now it is a system that he fears is beginning to fail.
