Tired of waiting, this N.S. woman went to the U.S. and paid for endometriosis surgery

Cassidy Walker spent four years in pain, waiting to see a gynecologist for what she suspected was endometriosis.

“No matter how much my family doctor advocated for me, I couldn’t get an appointment because the waitlist is so long. Just like so many other women in this province, I was stuck,” said the 29-year-old Halifax woman.

She said the pain was so severe she sometimes struggled to get out of bed, and missed out on important personal events and professional opportunities.

In 2023, Walker decided to go to Maine for endometriosis excision surgery, which cost her upward of $50,000. It alleviated her symptoms, but not her frustration with the state of health care in Nova Scotia.

“Women and gender-diverse people do not need special treatment, but they deserve to get the care that they need and they deserve to know that the government has a plan, and that isn’t happening right now,” she said at an NDP news conference Wednesday.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said the case demonstrates why Nova Scotia needs a women’s health strategy.

The Houston government was elected on a promise to fix health care, and it has made some improvements in areas such as primary care attachment and access points, Chender said.

But “we have not seen improvements with any of the issues that are incredibly serious and that predominantly impact women and gender-diverse people,” she said.

Surgical waits 3 times too long

Chender pointed to data from the provincial government released to her party under access-to-information laws last year. According to an internal document, as of May 2025, waits for routine gynecological care “remain high,” with an average of 2½ to three years.

It says the surgical waitlist for women at the IWK is three times longer than it should be, and only 30 per cent of surgeries are completed within the benchmark.

More than six years after her initial referral, Walker is still waiting to see a specialist in Nova Scotia. She said she needs followup care because the surgery resulted in the loss of one of her ovaries.

“It’s exhausting, not just physically, but the emotional strain of worrying about this day after day and knowing that I could still have to wait years,” she said.

Nova Scotia has a dedicated endometriosis clinic at the IWK Health Centre, which opened in 2021. Wait times at the clinic have been getting longer.

The IWK said it could not respond to a request for comment by deadline.

The Department of Health and Wellness said it’s committed to fixing health care for all Nova Scotians, including women and girls.

But, a spokesperson said in a statement, “a separate strategy isn’t necessarily required to improve care.”

They said meaningful gains are being made and pointed to the government’s plan to open a menopause centre and to a pelvic health suite that opened at the Dartmouth General last year as examples.

Liberals call for free pelvic floor physiotherapy

They said a women’s health strategy may be considered in the future.

Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin also supports a general women’s health strategy, but he said in the meantime, “there’s a number of common sense immediate gaps that can be filled.”

He pointed to items advocates and opposition parties have long called for including more coverage for birth control and expanded midwifery care.

This week, Rankin made one more suggestion: coverage for pelvic floor physiotherapy. The subspecialty of physiotherapy is used to treat many health conditions that commonly affect women including pelvic pain, urinary incontinence and prolapse, and to help with postpartum recovery.

“This is just one way that we can make a quick decision to provide that care that’s missing,” Rankin said in an interview.

Prince Edward Island has a pilot program to provide pelvic floor physiotherapy to people who are underinsured or have no insurance at all. Nova Scotia’s Health Department said it is interested in the results.

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