An Ontario mayor who travelled to Germany for experimental pancreatic cancer surgery after a denial from Ontario’s public health insurer tells CTV News that he is “ecstatic” to hear the procedure will now be available in Ontario.

Ontario’s Ministry of Health announced Tuesday that the province will spend $2.1 million over three years to expand a clinical trial of the NanoKnife, currently underway at Toronto’s University Health Network, to include pancreatic cancer patients. Before the announcement, only liver cancer patients had been eligible to participate in the study.

The NanoKnife, also known as Irreversible Electroporation (IRE), uses two fine needles guided by ultrasound or CT scan to deliver an electric current to a tumour, according to the ministry.

Some studies have suggested the surgery may double survival rates among patients with pancreatic cancer, a disease so aggressive that it kills 75 per cent of afflicted Canadians within a year of diagnosis.

Trent Hills Mayor Hector Macmillan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last January and applied to the province for funding to undergo a NanoKnife procedure in the United States.

But Ontario officials refused to pay for the surgery, stating that there was insufficient research to prove the procedure’s effectiveness.

Macmillan’s community heard about his situation and started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $320,000 for him to have the surgery abroad. In the end, more than 500 people donated to the cause, raising over $43,000.

He got the operation in Germany last October and now reports “feeling great” despite having had a Canadian doctor tell him he would not likely live past last Christmas.

Macmillan said he knows of dozens more people who have travelled to Germany for the surgery.

Ontario Minister of Health Dr. Eric Hoskins said when announcing the expanded clinical trial Monday that “it’s important that people with cancer have access to the most up-to-date lifesaving medical technologies and treatments here in Ontario.”

Dr. Hoskins made headlines last week when he said that, although he believes the province is making “the right and important investments in our health-care system,” he is also “concerned about the sustainability of the health-care system.”

Ontario has asked the federal government for a 5.2 per cent increase in the annual Canada Health Transfer but the Trudeau government has so far offered only 3.5 per cent plus some funding earmarked for mental health and home care.

With files from CTV’s medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip