Milk at 2700 $ a month: a new refusal of the government to the parents of little Liam

QMI agency

Thursday, 18 January, 2018 21:52

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Thursday, 18 January, 2018 21:52

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The parents of little Liam, 18 months, who suffers from severe food allergies, suffered a second refusal this week to repay a special milk essential to the diet.

READ ALSO : milk to 2700 $ per month to allow Liam to survive

Liam can not digest anything that contains a food protein. He may not eat clementines, bananas, pears and coconuts. He also has a feeding tube for those times when he does not want to eat.

To meet his protein needs, he must drink a special “milk” that contains amino acids and which costs about 2700 $ per month. But the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ) refused to reimburse his parents.

“The response that we get is that there is no number of medicine. This is absurd, we are going to give him a number. All the other milks in the same range are covered, but not this one”, pleaded Thursday night for his mom Genevieve Mastin.

“The problem with orphan diseases such as this one, is that we are so few in number that we don’t get to put pressure on the government,” said his mother, Jessica Tremblay.

Ms. Tremblay was hard to understand that Viagra is reimbursed by the drug and not the milk that is essential to the survival of her child.

The parents try to incorporate other milk whose costs are covered by the RAMQ, at the rate of 5 milliliters at a time, so as to desensitize Liam. But the process can be long.

They have therefore launched a new appeal for assistance to the minister of Health, Gaétan Barrette, Thursday, in the context of the issue of Denis Levesque on LCN.

The couple has launched a campaign sociofinancement for Liam, but hope to be a long-term support from the government.

“Challenge food”

No medical test does not check to see what the little one is intolerant. “It works by challenge food. He was hospitalized for a period of time where it has built a lot of foods and the reactions were monitored in a hospital environment. We managed to make a food-based at this time there,” explained Jessica Tremblay, who left his job to devote himself to his son.

Bananas account for 80 % of the diet of Liam, since it is the only food that can be served at will. But as it ages, Liam sometimes refuse to eat what we served him.

“One day, he’ll eat 10 bananas, the next day it is the tangerines who are spending”, highlighted Ms. Tremblay.

The only food that can be served at will, it is the banana. Others can cause diarrhea when taken in too large quantities.