A considerable amount of energy is being devoted,
rightly in my opinion, to new possibilities in discovering the causes and
developing cures for PD.
We still do not know what causes cell death in the
brain. When the cause of the death of the dopamine cells in the substantia
nigra is discovered and the reason demylenation occurs in MS, Parkinson's
patients and MS patients and their caregivers will rejoice. But their
rejoicing will be a selfless one because many of them will be too far advanced
or too old to benefit from the discovery.
And just because the cause(s) has been discovered,
it does not mean that cures will be found immediately. Well, in a perfect
world they might be, but we all know that our world is not perfect.
What this is leading up to is the utter lack
of attention that is being paid to therapy access. There are palliative
therapies in the market place that work and work well - effective and
efficacious to the rigorously-minded. DBS neurosurgery, for example. Why
are there not list members pursuing the expansion of this real
winner.. Some of te things that could be done:
- lobby for more training places for neurosurgeons and
the subspecialty, functional neurosurgery
- lobby for
more funding for these procedures
- lobby to ave
them universally approved by HMOs for reimbursement purposes
- ensure that
both neurologists and neurosurgeons use formal checklists to determine who
goes on the surgery list
- ensure that
hospitals make funding available from their global budgets
Or am I all wet?
