Diagnosed in Mexico with flesh-eating disease, Edmonton woman couldn't come home for treatment

An Edmonton woman diagnosed with flesh-eating disease in Mexico couldn't get a medevac flight home because Alberta's health authority said no hospital beds were available here.

Maia Stock, 25, is now out of hospital and awaiting a commercial flight home.

On Dec. 23, Stock and her parents were one day into a 10-day vacation in Puerto Vallarta.

"At 3 a.m. I woke up and my leg was just super swollen and red and hot to touch," Stock said in an interview from Mexico. "I had a fever."

She rushed to the resort doctor, who told her she needed to get to hospital. She was told she might lose her leg.

She was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, also known as flesh-eating disease, and pneumonia.

But getting back to Canada for the urgent care she needed wasn't possible.

"We were talking to a doctor in Canada too, about getting me home," Stock told CBC News. "He said, 'You just need to have it right now … you need it now,' or I could lose my leg."

Stock's mother, Barb Wilkinson, spent the next 24 hours trying to make sure the surgery could go ahead.

Stock's first surgery, in a Puerto Vallarta hospital, was on Boxing Day. She needed two other operations, the last of which was on Jan. 2.

"It's so much to navigate," Wilkinson said.

"Trying to find out what was actually happening and wrong with Maia, and and then negotiate with the insurance and negotiate with the hospital administrators, and then talk with the doctor back in Canada, and especially the crisis [Stock's diagnosis] on Christmas Day."

Work to get Stock back to Canada via a medevac flight had started on Dec. 26, before her second surgery.

"They were going to try and get her home. I actually naively assumed that would happen," said Wilkinson.

The hope was to get Stock home to see an infectious diseases specialist before her third surgery. 

The family's travel insurance company, TuGo, had lined up a medevac flight. But Stock and her parents were told they had to stay in Mexico because there was no hospital bed available for her in Edmonton.

Alberta Health Services responded to a request from CBC News for comment.

"When a family requests an out-of-country transfer, and provided the patient is stable enough to be transferred, we will do our best to work with the family and health insurance providers to repatriate patients to Alberta," a spokesperson said in an emailed statement.

"However, an AHS facility may only accept if they have available resources to provide care."

Dr. Ripenjot Rai, a Canadian consulting physician who worked with the family's travel insurance provider on Stock's behalf, said the winter virus season has caused problems across Canada's health-care system.

"When we were trying to move the patient back, it was quite busy," Rai said. "I think, generally speaking, beds were scarce all across the board."

He said having travel insurance can ensure that a patient gets adequate care wherever they are.

"But generally speaking, this bed shortage, the stresses and strain the health-care system has right now, can certainly affect that."

Taka Katsube, TuGo's director of cost management and medical assistance, said bed shortages are a recurring issue.

"It's particularly challenging right now; winter seasonal illnesses, COVID and other respiratory illnesses cause hospital beds to be even more scarce," Katsube said in a statement.

"We're seeing many cases go on for several days, even a week, before a bed becomes available or the patient gets better and is discharged."

Sheila Burns, director of health and disability policy with the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, said travellers should keep the hospital bed shortage in mind.

"It's good to be aware that it might take longer than normal to be returned to Canada if you need the continuing care in a hospital here," Burns said in an interview.

Stock was released from hospital on Tuesday.

She and her mother have booked a commercial flight to return to Edmonton on Friday.

Stock's wound requires extra care, meaning they needed to find a seat with adequate legroom. With the busy tourist season it's been a challenge. 

But Stock is looking at the bright side. 

"It was scary but … I've got both my legs, so that's a win."