One of them, 55-year-old Julie Bennett, explains to CBC that she's relying on narcotic pain killers to get her through while she awaits her surgery. She is told it won't happen until 2016, even though she was referred for the procedure in 2013, and she worries she will end up in a wheelchair before then. The other patient, 85-year-old Chiara Borello, spent two weeks in hospital while doctors experimented with medication to try to control her pain, according to her daughter Renata Borello.
"If I drop dead, that's fine," the elder Borello tells CBC. "But I won't take any more of that poison [the debilitating painkillers]. That's too much poison."