Noting sarcastically that “this is the reality of compassionate progressive health care,” commentator Glenn Beck says he is set to pay for surgery a Canadian woman needs but could not get in her home country, a circumstance that forced her to sign up for the nation’s assisted suicide program.
Saskatchewan resident Jolene Van Alstine suffers from a rare but treatable illness, normocalcemic primary hyperparathyroidism, which causes her to experience extreme bone pain, nausea and vomiting. The condition can be ameliorated through surgery, but Van Alstine was not able to schedule the operation under Canada’s government-run health care system.
Beck, founder of The Blaze, noticed an article in CBC reporting that Van Alstine would need to travel out of Saskatchewan for the surgery, but she first needed a referral from an endocrinologist. However, none is accepting new patients. As reported in Juno News, she told the CBC the pain had become so unbearable that she applied for assisted suicide, with her appointment scheduled for Jan. 7 next year.
The Canadian program is called medical assistance in dying, or MAID.
According to Life News, Van Alstine commented on her experience with the ailment, saying, “My friends have stopped visiting me. I’m isolated. I’ve been alone lying on the couch for eight years, sick and curled up in a ball, pushing for the day to end.
“I go to bed at 6 at night because I can’t stand to be awake anymore.”
Posted Beck: “If there is any surgeon in America who can do this, I’ll pay for this patient to come down here for treatment.
“THIS is the reality of ‘compassionate’ progressive healthcare.
“Canada must END this insanity and Americans can NEVER let it spread here.”
Do you mean that? I am Jolene Van Alstine, the person in the article pic.twitter.com/YttDbuEVEG
— Jolene Van Alstine (@Ultraviolet4910) December 9, 2025
Eventually, Van Alstine was put in contact with Beck who says a surgeon in the U.S. has agreed to perform the operation.
Kelsi Sheren had gone to bat for Van Alstine. In an article published on her Substack, she wrote that the case was particularly “egregious” because Canadian politicians have been shown to work hard to get emergency exemptions for non-Canadians to access assisted suicide. However, she noted that Canada’s health care system was “ok with helping Van Alstine die” but “not willing to put the same effort into helping her live.”
“Canada frames MAiD as empowerment. As compassion. As choice. But choice is only real when the alternatives are viable,” Sheren wrote. “If your options are slow agony or assisted death, that’s not autonomy, it’s coercion with a friendly tone.”
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