British Columbia Must Stop Leaving People With Multiple Sclerosis Behind

I never imagined that fighting to save my own vision would become a fight for thousands of people living with Multiple Sclerosis across British Columbia.

I never wanted to become an advocate. 

I wanted to be a mother who could see her children’s faces.
I wanted to live my life without the constant fear that my disease could take away another part of me. 

But when you are forced to fight for access to the treatment that changed your life, you quickly realize your fight is bigger than yourself. 

In 2017, Multiple Sclerosis changed my life forever. 

I lost vision in my right eye.
Then my left started to follow. 
After relentless optic nerve attacks, MRIs confirmed my diagnosis: brain lesions, severe optic nerve inflammation, and damage that would later become permanent scarring.
I was facing blindness.

My medical team fought to protect what remained of my vision. I underwent repeated high-dose steroid treatments and tried multiple therapies over months and months, but my disease continued to threaten my future. 

Then, in early 2018, I started Ocrevus, a Health Canada-approved therapy that changed everything. 

For nearly a decade, this treatment gave me something every person living with MS desperately hopes for… 

Stability. 

The attacks slowly stopped. My vision stabilized.  My disease controlled. 

It allowed me to watch my children grow. It allowed me to be present for birthdays, milestones, family moments, and everyday memories that many people never have to question. 

It helped preserve the life I was fighting so hard to keep. 

But in Multiple Sclerosis, stability is not something you take for granted. 

Stability is something you protect. 
Because MS is unpredictable. 
Because every relapse can leave permanent damage. 

Because every decision about treatment can impact someone’s future. 

And then, despite my treatment working, despite my neurologist wanting me to continue, despite nearly a decade of stability, I found myself facing the possibility of losing access.

Not because the medication failed.  
Not because it was no longer needed. 
Not because my medical team believed it was time to stop. 

Being forced to switch therapies or cover the cost.  Switching therapies in stable patients is a risk that should never be taken - especially when something so critical like a person vision is on the line. 

My insurance abruptly changed - now only providing a $5,000 annual cap. 
Even with the added 60% patient assistance program coverage I was offered, that would leave our single income family of 4 paying $12,000 a year out of pocket. 

I was facing a barrier created by a healthcare system that does not provide the same access to modern MS therapies that patients receive in every other province in Canada. 

When I chose Ocrevus , provinces across Canada were adding it to their public plans.
I believed we would follow.
Nearly a decade later, it remains restricted for relapsing MS.

That was the moment my personal fight became a public fight.

Because I quickly learned I was not alone.

British Columbia is the only province in Canada that continues to restrict public access to certain Health Canada-approved MS therapies, Ocrevus and Kesimpta, for people living with relapsing MS.

This is not about asking for special treatment.

This is about asking for equal treatment.

This is about asking British Columbia to recognize that people living with MS deserve the same opportunities, the same choices, and the same chance to protect their futures as people living elsewhere in Canada.

Multiple Sclerosis does not discriminate.

It can steal vision.
It can take mobility.

It can affect the ability to walk, use your hands, work, care for your family, or live independently. It can take away the future someone imagined for themselves.

And once neurological damage happens, there is no guarantee it can ever be reversed.

That is why access matters. 
That is why timing matters.

That is why the relationship between a patient and their neurologist matters.

MS is not a one-size-fits-all disease. 
Every person’s disease is different.

Every person’s risks are different. 
Every person’s treatment journey is different.

A therapy that protects one person’s vision may not protect another person’s ability to walk. 
A therapy that works for one person may not work for another. 
A therapy that is tolerated by one person may not be tolerated by someone else.

That is why modern MS care is built around choice and individualized treatment decisions.

But today, people living with MS in British Columbia face barriers that patients in other provinces do not.

Some cannot access the treatment their neurologist believes is the right option for them.

Some lose access when private insurance changes, employment ends, or benefits run out.

Some live with the fear that the treatment keeping their disease stable could disappear, not because it stopped working, but because of where they live.

These are not treatment failures.
These are access failures.

And access failures can change lives.

This fight has grown far beyond my own story.

It has brought together patients, families, advocates, healthcare professionals, and voices across British Columbia who believe that people living with MS deserve better.

This conversation has reached places I never imaged it could but hoped it would.

It is slowly reaching the people who have the ability to change this.

And I will continue to fight until British Columbians living with MS have the same access to modern treatments as patients across this country.

What We Are Asking

• Publicly fund Ocrevus and Kesimpta for relapsing Multiple Sclerosis, aligning British Columbia with the rest of Canada.
• Ensure patients and neurologists have access to all Health Canada-approved MS therapies needed to make individualized treatment decisions. 
• Protect patients who are stable on effective therapies from losing access because insurance coverage changes. 
• Ensure treatment decisions are based on medical need and clinical evidence — not provincial restrictions.

Why I Continue This Fight

I started this journey trying to save my sight. 
I continued because I realized too many others were facing the same uncertainty.

People living with MS should not have to fight their healthcare system while they are already fighting an incurable neurological disease.

They should not have to prove why they deserve access to a treatment that is already approved.

They should not have to fear that their future depends on their postal code.

This fight is about every person with MS in British Columbia.

The person afraid of losing their vision. 
The person afraid of losing their mobility. 
The person trying to stay employed. 
The parent trying to stay present for their children.

The person newly diagnosed who deserves the best chance at protecting their future from the beginning.

Multiple Sclerosis has no boundaries.
It does not care where someone lives.

And access to the treatments that can change the course of this disease should not either.

Please sign and share this petition.

Together, we can ensure that no person living with Multiple Sclerosis in British Columbia faces preventable disability because our healthcare system failed to keep pace with modern MS care.