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Comments
| Little Renée Stock |
 Little Renee Stocks’ story appeared in The Ottawa Citizen November 28, 2007. She is four. She has Glutaric Acidemia Type II. This is a rare metabolic disease that destroys her ability to digest and break down protein and fat. Because of this inability, she has developed Leukodystrophy which can lead to deterioration of her motor skills, hearing, vision and ability to swallow and gradual functional decline.
The family expenses for her care are mounting. She needs special food. The low-fat, high-carbohydrate food she requires is expensive. It costs $18 for 500 gm of special pasta from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. Her mother stays home to care for her and the family tries to manage on her father’s income as a paramedic. They have taken out a line of credit at the bank. A new medicine that may help her is not yet approved in Canada and costs $70,000 a year. It is not covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan . Renee is not alone when it comes to the inadequate funding of potentially life saving medication. Add to this the slow drug review process in Canada and you have a method of rationing care or at least potentially deferring public health care costs. When other countries have approved certain drugs and made them available to their citizens, Canada’s system lags behind, particularly in Ontario. One wonders whether this is intentional or just that we Canadians are so safety conscious that we would sooner see a patient gradually die without hope than actively try to help them. There are many others like this little girl whose conditions are not in the five priorities identified for health care wait times . Tommy Douglas’ vision of no family going bankrupt and no patient dying because they cannot afford medical care fades in the reality that our health care system seems unable to provide full care for patients like Renee. The resources don’t exist for some of the most vulnerable patients. A local Shoppers Drug Mart is attempting to assist the family to fundraise for this much needed medication which has the ability to buy hope and some time. A trust account has been set up at a local TD Canada Trust.The question I ask is: “What makes this little girl’s health care any less urgent or any less required than the care for the patient injured in some kind of accident…let’s say a motor-cycle accident?” Surely this little girl is no less deserving than the individual who receives expensive emergency treatment and rehabilitative services and who may not ever fully recover or be fully functional again. Why is she treated as less deserving of funding? There are no guarantees in life and it appears not for all types of medical care in Canada either. While there are patients willing to pay for their own treatments either out of pocket or through insurance, Canada denies this right insisting that patients be covered for their sniffles and their sore toes and other medical care and procedures.This diminishes the public health care resources available to some patients and families for their greatest medical needs. Is this the Canadian way? Add your comment |