It appears Maureen Hafstein and other Parkinson鈥檚 patients like her will continue to wait on one of the longest lists in the country for Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) surgery, despite the fact that the waiting may make them miss their chance at the procedure altogether.
Shuswap MLA Greg Kyllo said after repeatedly being told Health Minister Adrian Dix would get back to him last week, he informed the Observer he had heard from Dix on Monday morning.
鈥淗e was careful in his comments, saying that the health authorities are allocated base funding for surgeries and they are in the best position to make the determination about where there are the greatest pressures and the greatest needs,鈥� said Kyllo.
Kyllo says the argument that health-care decisions should not be coming from government is valid, but he notes there have been a number of cases where governments have become involved in such decisions.
He points to the situation where the government is providing targeted health-care funding specifically for performing hip and knee replacement surgeries and reducing wait times.
鈥淗e reluctantly agreed there was a decision made to target those wait times,鈥� Kyllo said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of like picking winners and losers here.鈥�
Dix鈥檚 office did not respond to the Observer鈥檚 request for an interview.
Meanwhile Hafstein says she is not giving up in her quest to bring attention to the wait list issue for Parkinson鈥檚 patients throughout B.C.
鈥淭o think that a province of our size has only one surgeon鈥� The people of B.C. deserve better from our medical system. I will pursue the option of going out of province for surgery if I have to,鈥� Hafstein said by text, as her Parkinson鈥檚 impairs her ability to speak.
Dix鈥檚 office gave an email address for the chief of surgery at Vancouver General to Kyllo to give to Hafstein and suggested she take her case to him. But Hafstein isn鈥檛 sure this would change anything and says solving her own issue won鈥檛 help the other patients still waiting on the list.
鈥淚 want to be clear that I am not wanting to jump ahead of anyone in line. I am asking for increased funding so that everyone will benefit,鈥� she said.
Hafstein plans to continue her letter-writing campaign and is still going to try and arrange a face-to-face meeting with Dix to discuss the situation.
Kyllo says the DBS surgery in B.C. is funded at a cost of approximately $1 million a year.
Only one doctor in B.C., Dr. Christopher Honey, is currently performing the procedure at either Vancouver General or UBC. This compares to Alberta, which has two surgeons performing DBS, Quebec has four, Manitoba has two and Saskatchewan has two. The Canadian average for DBS surgery is one surgeon for every two million people. In B.C. the rate is one surgeon for 4.5 million.
Parkinson鈥檚 Disease is a complex degenerative brain disorder that affects a person鈥檚 ability to move. While DBS is not a cure, it can provide a significant impact on the patient鈥檚 health and quality of life 鈥� often helping to slow the progression of the disease for many years. For the DBS surgery to have benefits, it must be done within a certain window of time. If the patient鈥檚 symptoms become too severe, the operation no longer has a good chance of success and those patients become no longer eligible for the procedure.
Currently, Honey says most of his patients are waiting two years and he notes the B.C. standard target for surgical wait time is supposed to be 26 weeks.
Honey has trained another surgeon to perform DBS surgery, but without funding from the government for this surgeon and for equipping another operating room, no additional DBS procedures can be scheduled.
Honey says lobbying for additional funding has been an education in the political system.
鈥淢y patients, you see, have very complex medical needs and many of them are simply too ill to advocate for themselves. They are quiet and suffer mostly in silence鈥� There鈥檚 only about 70 to 80 people I see each year. Any politician can afford to lose 70 to 80 votes.鈥�
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