Crowdsourcing used to fund Lyme disease FOI request
BY PAMELA FAYERMAN, VANCOUVER SUN SEPTEMBER 8, 2014
In tickety-tock time Monday morning, a Lyme disease advocate was successful in crowdsourcing enough money to pay the Provincial Health Services Authority fee for documents requested through a Freedom of Information request.
Half the $2,160 fee came from Dr. Liz Zubek, a former physician with the Complex Chronic Disease Program at BC Women’s Hospital, the beleaguered clinic with over 1,000 patients on a waiting list, which is at the centre of the FOI.
Zubek matched every dollar raised through the campaign on FundRazr. It closed within 3.5 hours of being launched after funds from 17 contributors had come in.
Zubek, a Maple Ridge family doctor, said she offered to contribute about $1,000 because “something is wrong and I believe the records regarding the clinic belong in the public realm …”