This is my daughter Vienna and her storey but, it’s a storey shared throughout the country in different iterations. The common thread extensive wait times, worsening conditions, innovation deemed “experimental” because the system cannot keep with innovation that has become a simple standard of care option in the USA. Anterior Scoliosis Correction is a motion preserving standard of care surgical technique to correct scoliosis with multiple tethers and is therefore capable of correcting mature spines with no growth left (ie. child and adult spines). Think of it as the iPhone 17. Canada offers Growth Modulation tethering surgery using 1 tether on children’s spines requiring growth left in the spine to pull the tether tight as the spine grows (think of this as the original iPhone). Vienna was told to use a brace to try to avoid surgery bracing failed and her delayed referral meant she was not a candidate for Canada’s single tether correction and was put on the fusion wait list. Fusion meant she would lose her spinal mobility in a procedure that works but, creates a rigidi immoveable spine where fused. This would be 80% of her thoracic spine. (Fusion is like a rotary dial phone.) She remained waiting for fusion for over two years as her spine went from 54 degrees to 67 degrees. We have always done what we were told. We’ve paid our taxes, been proud of universal healthcare for all, did the bracing recommended and waited. But, at 67 degrees, an unstable curve heading towards 70 plus degrees, increasing pain and threat of complications to her internal organs we couldn’t wait any longer and applied for Out-of-Country Health Services (the pressure valve system in place to capture cases like Vienna’s). But, it failed us too. What are Canadians supposed to do when the system we own and pay for is blocking us from accessing the care we need? @CDNConstFound @SecondStreetOrg