A cancer survivor suffering excruciating pain says she has been treated with apathy and indifference by the WA health system. Esperance resident Jayde guest says she was forced to go interstate to find out what was causing her chronic pain.
00:00Jade Guest enjoys the sunshine whenever she can.
00:06The Esperance mother of two has spent the past year battling debilitating pain.
00:10I just woke up, it was a Monday morning and I was like, oh my goodness, I'm in a lot of pain.
00:15By night time, most of the time I'm on the couch crying.
00:17Despite multiple trips to Perth, no doctors were able to provide answers.
00:22Well, I was pretty much depressed because I was so searching for an answer that no one was giving me.
00:27The 42-year-old says she was rejected twice from the WA Health Department's Central Referral Service,
00:34designed to triage cases, and hospitals stopped calling her back.
00:38I'm in the too hard basket.
00:40Very frustrating, I feel like they've definitely failed her.
00:43Fed up with the lack of answers, Jade joined social media support groups and sought out pain experts all over the world.
00:50Finally, she found an East Coast doctor who discovered a Gore-Tex mesh inserted into her chest during a battle with bone cancer 20 years ago was deteriorating.
01:01He said he can get it out for me, but now the problem is what are we going to, how are we going to rebuild my chest wall?
01:07While the waiting continues, she's relieved to have a way forward.
01:10If I hadn't have taken this into my own hands, I would be still waiting, waiting for the doctors to help me.
01:15Around 400,000 West Australians suffer chronic pain, with rural residents disproportionately impacted.
01:22Unfortunately, it's one of the areas where we see people having to convince the clinicians that they're working with that their pain is real.
01:30In a statement, the WA Health Minister, Meredith Hammett, says the system aims to provide high quality care to all West Australians,
01:37no matter the severity of their condition.
01:39She says they'll continue working to advance the care provided.
01:42With surgery now on the horizon, Jay Guest is trying to live life to the fullest.
