Lucy Reynolds knows all about wait times in the B.C. healthcare system, having waited 10 months for surgery to recover her hearing while in Kindergarten.
Now a ten-year-old in Grade 5, Lucy took upon herself, as part of a school project, to lobby the B.C. Minister of Health, Adrian Dix about wait times in the province.
The articulate and forthright Lucy wrote to Dix in detail, explaining how he needs to prioritize getting people a family doctor and tackle waiting lists for patients to see specialists and who are desperate for tests such as CT scans and MRIs.
She has yet to receive a reply from Dix, but that hasn’t stopped the Steveston area girl from soldiering on with her project in her Stratford Hall class in Vancouver.
“I thought (writing) was the best way to get it started; my teacher said it was a good way to take action,” Lucy told the Richmond News, moments before her school presentation on the subject.
“I chose health for the project for two reasons: I’ve had personal experience; I had fluid in my ears and I had to wait a long time for surgery.
“And two, I interviewed a doctor by FaceTime at Children’s Hospital and the single biggest challenge she told me was people getting access to healthcare.
“If it weren’t for the project, I’d still do this as I want to see change. I know there is no clear way to solve the issue, but I know we need more medical professionals out there, so we need more medical students to start with. The more doctors we have, the more patients can receive proper care.”
Lucy recalled how, in 2013, she all of a sudden started screaming with pain, closely followed by the hearing loss.
“I could hear very little; I couldn’t hear my teacher,” she said.
“I had no friends because I couldn’t hear them. I played a lot by myself at that time I kind of got used to it.”
She eventually had three surgeries, in total, over two and a half years to deal with OME (otitis media with effusion).
Lucy had tubes put in her hears to help drain the fluid and help improve her hearing.
She also had her tonsils removed and a frenotomy to release the tissue that attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth, all of which resulted in her requiring speech therapy.
“Hearing is a privilege now and my friend and I write songs all the time,” added Lucy.
