A Saskatchewan family with a toddler who has been bleeding from the ear for months says they’re unhappy with the health-care system and that their daughter needs help now.

“It’s very frustrating,” Jennifer Bustin said.

Bustin’s daughter Emily Summers, who will turn three years old next month, has been bleeding regularly from her ear at night since April and she often wakes up in agony.

She’s on a non-urgent wait list, according to her mother. Her parents are worried she will have to wait another few months before surgery to stop the bleeding and say the toddler’s hearing and speech is steadily getting worse.

The family claims they’ve spoken to several agencies, from their MLA to the Saskatoon Health Region, but have yet to receive help.

“It’s very upsetting,” Bustin said. “It’s almost like they make me feel like I’m crazy — like I bring her in and they’re like, ‘Well, it doesn’t look bad right now,’ and ‘There’s nothing that we can really do for you.”

Their daughter has had health issues since the day she was born.

She weighed just over two pounds when she was born. Doctors increased her diet to help her gain weight, but this caused her to vomit excessively and led to a buildup of fluid in her ear. She had a tube implanted in her ear when she was one year old.

Bustin said the newest health concern — the bleeding — arose one night this spring when she awoke to her daughter screaming in pain.

“I went in and I got her, and I was sitting with her and I thought, ‘What is this smell?’” Buston recalled. “I couldn't figure out what this smell was and I looked and she had blood coming down the side of her face.”

She said she took her concerns to the provincial NDP on Monday and that the party told her they will bring up the issue in the legislature on Wednesday.

“It’s not fair that all she knows is pain. She should just have a normal little life,” Bustin said.

The Saskatoon Health Region said it cannot comment on Emily’s case, but the region’s director of surgical services, Cindy Graham, said a patient’s priority level can change depending on surgeon’s assessments.

“There are times where patients’ needs change and reclassification may occur,” Graham said. “That’s really based on the surgeon doing another assessment and changing their level of priority.”

--- based on a report by CTV's Julie Clark