Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen: an update

To read Stephen Drake's update on Minna Mettinen-Kekalainen, posted at Not Dead Yet on Friday, see here.

From Sunday's The Sudbury Star:

Social work students' protest pushes for home care for Canadian woman with ALS, Asperger's

Social work students from Laurentian University are demanding immediate action to resolve the case of a Sudbury woman suffering from ALS who says she is being denied home care.

About a dozen students staged a day-long protest downtown Jan. 23 to draw attention to the story of a woman they say has fallen through the cracks of a health-care system that is broken.

They admitted they don't have all the facts in the dispute between Minna Mettinen- Kekalainen (pictured) and the North East Community Care Access Centre, and protest leader Steve Murray said he recognized the agency couldn't speak about the case because of confidentiality laws."

We are not here to make anyone or any agency seem like a bad guy," said Murray, speaking through a megaphone in front of Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci's constituency office just before noon.

"But we are here to ensure that this issue does not get swept under the rug."

Murray said the purpose of their demonstration was twofold -- to get Mettinen- Kekalainen the services she needs and isn't receiving, and to call for collaboration to find out what happened in this case and to ensure it never happens again.

"Our message to both the government and the agencies involved here is that this situation is completely unacceptable," said Murray.

To read the story in full, see here.