A Prince Edward Island man wants others to be aware of a federal program that offers compensation for serious and permanent injuries from vaccines approved by Health Canada, since he missed the deadline for applying and has been left in dire straits.
Kent Gillespie used to rotate among three different occupations to make a living.
“I was doing construction, I’ve been cooking for a lot of years and I had my own painting company,” he said during an interview with CBC News at his Charlottetown home.
His life is very different now.
“I tried going back to work with my nephew and it seemed like every second day I had to take the day off because my hands were just locked up like this,” he said, showing his cramped and painful fingers. “I feel a lot less of a human being.”
Gillespie said his troubles began with back pain not long after his first dose of the Moderna vaccine for COVID-19 back in 2021. His legs gave out too, with the collapse sending him to the hospital.
Doctors there didn’t know what was wrong, he said, so when the time came for his second shot of vaccine, he went ahead with it. That’s when the mysterious problem with his hands started.
Now his days are spent applying anti-inflammatory cream, trying to get around as best he can, and wishing there was better awareness of the supports for the small number of people who develop vaccine injuries.
“It’s hard because I [feel] I’m alone. No one’s going to help me. I called everywhere.”
Adverse reactions rare, but not unknown
The vast majority of people around the world who’ve received COVID vaccines since early 2021 have had minor side-effects at most. By the time Canada stopped updating its database on adverse reactions to COVID vaccines in December 2023, only 0.011 per cent of all doses administered had led to what were considered serious reactions.
Text on that database also noted: “Adverse events may occur after being vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine, but they are not necessarily related to the vaccine.”
In December 2020, the federal government had launched a program to support and compensate people for “serious and permanent” injuries linked to any kind of vaccine authorized by Health Canada.
It’s called the Vaccine Injury Support Program.
As of December 2024, its website says, the program had paid out $16.6 million to 209 people out of the 3,060 claims submitted by that date. Out of the 1,049 who had been assessed by a medical review board, 328 people who were turned down for compensation had appealed. Only 10 appeals had led to an overturn of the original decision by the end of 2024.
When you apply, a doctor has to fill out part of your application form, backing up your claim that your injury was caused by the vaccine. You must also apply within three years of your symptoms emerging.
Gillespie didn’t know the compensation program existed until last year, though. He said his Charlottetown doctor filled out the paperwork and he sent it in, only for him to be told that he was 10 months too late for his claim to be even considered.
“I was disgusted, really, that our government could do this to us, get away with it.”
Kent Gillespie would love to be able to work full time again, but says his hands and back have never been the same since he had a bad reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s very rare, but there is a federal program to offer support to people with severe and permanent injuries from getting a Health Canada-approved vaccine. Unfortunately, as CBC’s Sheehan Desjardins reports, Gillespie was too late applying for help and now has nowhere to turn.
Claims can take 18 months, or longer
The program, funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada, applies to vaccines authorized by Health Canada and administered in Canada on or after Dec. 8, 2020.
The Vaccine Injury Support Program is administered by a company called Oxaro “to insure impartiality,” in the words of a Public Health Agency of Canada spokesperson.
It’s meant to help people who have “a severe, life-threatening or life-altering injury that may require in-person hospitalization, or a prolongation of existing hospitalization, and results in persistent or significant disability or incapacity, or where the outcome is a congenital malformation or death.”
“The average claim takes 12 to 18 months to process, but sometimes may take longer,” the PHAC spokesperson told CBC News in an email.
An official from Oxaro’s program told CBC News in an email that it can’t address any individual case for privacy reasons.
“The VISP team performs diligent case review to ensure that the claimant history and evolution of injury is understood when applying the three-year threshold,” the email said. “Claims filed after the three-year maximum unfortunately can not be considered.”
The email said information about the program was available on the Government of Canada website, and can be found by searching “vaccine injury,” and was also publicized by the Public Health Agency of Canada.
CBC News reached out to P.E.I.’s Chief Public Health Office to find out what other supports are available. A spokesperson replied Thursday afternoon.
“Serious adverse events caused by vaccines are very rare,” the email began, before giving details about adverse reaction surveillance measures and the same program Gillespie had already tried: the Vaccine Injury Support Program.
Review could take years
Gillespie is asking to have his case reviewed, but the Public Health Agency of Canada has told him that could take years.
He’s written to everyone he can think of, including Prime Minister Mark Carney’s office. They replied in early April to refer him to the health minister’s office, which replied a month later.
I am deeply sorry to learn of the issues and challenges that you are experiencing. I cannot begin to imagine the frustration and impact it has had on your daily life.— Letter from PHAC official
“On behalf of the minister of health, I wish to thank you for sharing your experience with the Vaccine Injury Support Program… I am deeply sorry to learn of the issues and challenges that you are experiencing. I cannot begin to imagine the frustration and impact it has had on your daily life,” the letter from PHAC’s Steven Sternthal began.
But it went on: “PHAC is not directly involved in any individual case assessments, decisions, or outcomes and is unable to intervene on behalf of individual claimants. This arrangement ensures that cases receive impartial and independent medical review.”
Gillespie doesn’t have much fight — or money — left.
“It would mean the world,” he said of the potential compensation involved, if the process could have led to a finding that it was the vaccine that caused his problems. “It would… keep me in a home, it would keep my car, [I would] be able to pick up my daughter, take her places and stuff like that.
“I’m never going to be the same person I was again, though. I feel like I’ve lost 20 years off my life.”
