Canada’s vaccine injury program declared her dead. But she’s not

The company that runs Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) wrongly declared a B.C. woman dead and didn’t correct its mistake for months despite multiple requests, Global News has learned.

Carol Messenger of Comox, B.C., learned that on Oct. 2, 2024, she was pronounced a “deceased claimant” by the support program, a year after she had initially filed a claim for financial compensation.

As Messenger’s application moved through the VISP process, program staff sent a letter by fax to her physician’s office, requesting her medical records. The records are required to assess all claims.

A copy of the letter called Messenger a “deceased claimant.”

“They actually said I was dead,” said Messenger, a retired Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services captain. “I don’t feel dead. Unbelievable.”

Asked about being declared deceased while battling a life-altering injury that left her fully, and then later, partially disabled, from the waist down, Messenger choked up and replied: “It really didn’t feel good, you know?”

VISP is administered by an Ottawa-based consulting company, Oxaro Inc., on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada, which oversees the effort under an agreement signed in 2021. So far, Oxaro has been paid $56 million for the deal, which is up for renewal in 2026.

Oxaro declined to answer any questions about Messenger’s case or say whether its staff had wrongly declared any other VISP claimants deceased, citing “privacy reasons.”

In an emailed statement to Global News, however, PHAC spokesman Mark Johnson said: “We are saddened to hear the details of Ms. Messenger’s case.”

Johnson wrote that PHAC was unaware of Oxaro erroneously declaring any VISP claimants dead “through the claims administration process,” but added that PHAC does not have access to claimants’ personal information or records of their communications with Oxaro.

“PHAC takes the concerns raised by Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) claimants and beneficiaries seriously. The VISP was created to support vulnerable people who need it,” the PHAC spokesman wrote.

Johnson reiterated that a previously-announced federal audit of Oxaro’s VISP administration work is now underway and has been accelerated, adding that it will also now “include a review of their management processes relating to documentation.”

“PHAC cannot yet comment on its findings. Results of the audit will help inform next steps regarding the operation and delivery of the VISP,” he added.

In a previous response, an Oxaro spokesman said VISP is a new and demand-based program “with an unknown and fluctuating number of applications and appeals submitted by claimants.”

“In collaboration with PHAC, OXARO continues to adapt its approach based on actual number of applications and appeals received. We aim at providing a process that ensures that all cases are treated fairly and with the same care, respect, and due diligence,” the company said.

Messenger decided to share her story after reading Global News’ five-month investigation into the federal program, which revealed that:

• Of the $50.6 million in taxpayer money Oxaro received, $33.7 million has been spent on administrative costs. Injured Canadians have received $16.9 million. Updated Health Canada figures released in July show the company has now received $54.1 million and spent $36.3 million on administration costs, with $18.1 million paid to injured Canadians.
• PHAC and Oxaro underestimated the number of injury claims VISP would get, initially predicting 40 per year, escalating to 400 valid claims annually. However, more than 3,317 applications have been filed. More than 1,738 people, like Carol Messenger, await decisions on their claims.
• Former Oxaro workers described a workplace that lacked the gravitas of a program meant to assist the seriously injured and chronically ill, featuring office drinking, ping pong, slushies and Netflix streaming at desks. Some injured applicants say they have faced a revolving door of unreachable VISP case managers and require online fundraising campaigns to survive.
• Some VISP applicants and former Oxaro staff said the consulting company was unequipped to deliver fully on the program’s mission to deliver “timely and fair” support, and questions emerged about why the PHAC chose this company over others.

If Messenger’s face seems familiar to people in British Columbia, it’s because they may have seen her in their living rooms for years as a TV spokeswoman for Vancouver Fire.

Now, the former first responder who served others needs help herself, a shift in identity that she found difficult.

Messenger believes her experiences with VISP show that Oxaro is ill-equipped to deliver the services that she and thousands of other ill or injured claimants need in a timely way.

Global News has reviewed Messenger’s medical records, in which her doctors characterize her spinal cord injury as an adverse reaction to her COVID-19 vaccination.

When Messenger learned that VISP had declared her dead, she sent an email to her VISP case manager, who emailed an apology a few days later.

“My sincere apologies for the error made on our path,” her case manager replied via email.

Global News is not identifying the case managers involved because VISP suggested there are safety concerns associated with having their full names publicly revealed.

The case manager also told Messenger they would notify the VISP medical records collections team “to fix this error” and send a corrected records request to Messenger’s doctor.

Two weeks after the dubious fax arrived, the medical clinic where Messenger’s physician works sent a fax to VISP’s medical records collection unit.

In its message to VISP medical records collection staff, the clinic stated it had twice tried to reach somebody at VISP to correct the records request, asking that they either show proof that Messenger was dead or fix the request. The clinic says there was no response.

Instead of fixing the error and expediting the woman’s case, the delays dragged on.

Messenger says it took her and her doctor’s office at least five months to have VISP finally access her records, further delaying her claim for financial support.

Nearly two years later, Messenger still awaits a decision on her VISP application, having paid for extensive physiotherapy, counselling and other medical expenses.

Her claim is now in a pre-medical assessment phase in which her medical records are being redacted so physicians don’t know her identity when they review her case. They are subsequently submitted to a three-member board of physicians for review.

She says VISP told her that it will take another 3.5 to 5 months before any decision is made on her claim. It will take more time after that to process any claim receipts she submits.

Messenger has become very frustrated with how Oxaro is administering the VISP program.

“Very low confidence. Absolutely no expectations,” she said.  “Like, how can you have (it), you know? I don’t feel confident in the administration, communication, and timeliness and competency, really,” said Messenger.

Messenger told Global News the apology she received was hollow, and two of her case managers tried to explain their errors by saying they are overloaded.

“I haven’t felt that other than, ‘Oh, we’re so sorry, we’re so busy, you know we’ll do our best, we’ll get back to you,’ like really they’re just false words,” Messenger said.

“All I can pray is that when their contract is up, that they will never have this again or ever have the ability to impact people so negatively with the lack of professionalism and the delay in providing support, financial or otherwise, to people who are truly suffering,” Messenger added.

Jennifer Keelan, a veteran health policy researcher and consultant, said she is concerned by the mistake in Messenger’s file.

“Beside the fact that it’s wrong to get this wrong, we have a moral and civic duty to get this right,” she said. “This person, if they were injured by that vaccine, has not been done right by our program and Canada.”

“I don’t think anybody would accept this level of administrative snafus, even on a single, isolated case,” Keelan added.

Keelan, a former professor at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, has studied vaccine injury support programs around the world.

The Auditor-General of Canada or the House of Commons Health Committee should investigate how Oxaro is administering the VISP, Keelan said.

“How many months would it take to fix that one report of a dead living person? Should be enough to red flag that and maybe audit,” Keelan told Global News. “Why would that create a snafu that would last multiple, multiple months?… Isn’t that a day of phone calls (to resolve)?”

“I think an inquiry could be useful in at least understanding why a company with very little background in medical risk assessments was assigned that contract,” Keelan said, adding that she would prefer a program manager with more medical and risk management experience.

In its 155-page proposal to administer VISP in 2021, Oxaro (then called Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc.) listed two experiences it had with health claims adjudication. One was operating the Memorial Grant Program for First Responders, a small federal program that pays a lump sum to families of emergency workers who died. The other was acting as liquidator of Union of Canada Life Insurance after the small firm became insolvent in 2012, processing outstanding accident, life and medical claims until 2015.

Keelan emphasized that VISP is not an ordinary government program.

“This is a pillar of a national immunization scheme, and our national immunization scheme relies heavily on public confidence and public acceptance,” the researcher said.

Messenger had just ended a lengthy 21 career with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services and moved to Vancouver Island with her husband, Dan Messenger, for their retirement when she developed various ailments following her second COVID-19 immunization.

In July 2021, she suddenly collapsed during a family boating outing. She was paralyzed from the waist down. The incident occurred 25 days after her second COVID-19 shot, medical records show.

She was rushed to hospital, where doctors discovered a 5 cm lesion on her spine and diagnosed her with transverse myelitis. Her injury left her with several permanent disabilities, and transverse myelitis is a known adverse reaction to COVID-19 vaccines.

“I never recovered full sensation in my lower buttocks, my perineum, part of my hamstrings, then you go pretty much down to my feet. And my heels I can’t feel, my right foot is better than my left, so my left foot I can’t, you know, when you walk on your tippy toes, I can’t support myself on the left side, so I have a bit of a limp,”  Messenger said.

The couple’s retirement was forever altered.

Messenger also now suffers from searing leg pain at night. For a time, she was hooked up to a catheter to empty her bladder. She then had to learn how to do it herself and has since healed that.

As part of her retirement plan, she had created a part-time consulting business to help coach and prepare young and aspiring firefighters for the hiring process and job interviews.

But initially she didn’t have the strength to operate it while she fought to recover.

Instead, the once-athletic fire captain underwent months of drug treatments, physiotherapy, and couples counselling because of lower body dysfunction.

Though she has recovered some function in her legs, she continues to limp, and her physician concluded her disabilities are permanent.

Carol Messenger’s injury and the mishandling of her VISP claim have left her husband, Dan, distraught, despite his wife’s incredibly positive outlook.

“This has ruined my wife’s life, and it’s made the last three or four years pretty difficult for both of us,” he said.

Messenger wants Canadians to know that he and his wife are not against immunization.

“We’re not, we were never anti-vaxxers. We were always people that believe that, you know, we supported vaccines and we still do,” he said.

“It’s really unfortunate, I think, for people like us who put up her hand and said, ‘Yeah, we want to be a part of this. We want to support this.’ I don’t think that she’s being treated fairly.”

READ MORE OF OUR COVERAGE 

PART 1: Canada set up a $50M vaccine injury program. Those harmed say it’s failing them 

PART 2: ‘Nothing was ready’: Inside Canada’s Vaccine Injury Support Program

PART 3: VISP aimed to curb vaccine injury lawsuits. Now, people are suing in 3 provinces

READ OTHER RELATED STORIES:

Vaccine injury programs elsewhere also face challenges, criticism

Is VISP an independent administrator? Here’s what some documents say

Tory MPs, health group call for investigation and overhaul of vaccine support program

Federal auditors target vaccine injury program amid surprise Oxaro office visit

‘Breach of trust’: Critics slam Ottawa’s vaccine injury program ‘failure’

‘I am on it’: Health minister accelerates audit of vaccine injury program

Have you been wrongly declared “deceased” by the Vaccine Injury Support Program after filing an injury claim? Global News reporters want to hear from you. Or contact us about our VISP investigation. Email: andrew.mcintosh@corusent.com or reach Andrew at (416) 550-4684. Or email : carolyn.jarvis@globalnews.com.