Trying to survive: To access lifesaving drugs, young cancer patients face huge hurdles – National | Globalnews.ca: Four years ago, Ontarian Rebecca Grundy got a nightmare diagnosis that sent her into a blind panic.

She was only 28 years old and had no reason to believe she was anything other than perfectly healthy, except for a few headaches.

But after waking up on a stretcher in the hallway of a Toronto hospital after suffering three grand mal seizures, doctors found a cancerous tumour the size of her fist on the front left lobe of her brain.

A 2021 study conducted by the pharmaceutical pricing consultancy PDCI Market Access found 17 to 30 per cent of cancer patients aged 25 to–64 in Ontario have no form of drug coverage whatsoever.

Those patients are left to navigate complex bureaucratic red tape as they attempt to apply to emergency or high-cost provincial drug programs, or to compassionate programs provided by pharmaceutical manufacturers to avoid eye-popping medical bills.

All of this paperwork takes time, and a vast amount of already-depleted energy to complete.

Needless to say, for Grundy, both time and energy were in short supply after her rare-cancer diagnosis.