In spite of the rhetoric in some quarters, it is important to maintain and improve health care in Canada. Especially improve when it comes to lyme disease recognition and care. When I saw the following notice I wanted to contribute in some way. Granted, the focus was on a broad swath of health care needs, but lyme disease is a rapidly growing concern for Canadians.

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, Health Critic for the Official Opposition, will be hosting a Special Town Hall meeting “Defending Health Care” on January 23rd in Toronto. He will be joined by Hon. Carolyn Bennett, Member of Parliament for St. Paul’s.

This Town Hall on the future of Canadian Health Care will continue a national dialogue on how we can best defend, strengthen and improve our health care system over the course of this important decade.

I believe passionately that now is the time for innovative public solutions that preserve our Medicare system and defend the principles of universality and accessibility. We need increased support for family caregivers found in our Family Care Plan. In the long run, we need to address other challenges, like the increasingly prohibitive cost of medicines by bringing pharmaceuticals as well as home care into the Canada Health Act.

The federal government has the jurisdiction and the responsibility to play a leading role in proposing these solutions. The federal government must be committed to defending Canada’s health care system against those who would in the name of protecting health care make it less than universal and public.

Now is the time to ensure that Medicare survives and thrives for generations of Canadians to come.. Canadians who believe in Medicare can no longer, in good conscience, remain silent.

Working together, we can defend and improve health care in Canada for the benefit of many generations to come. I need your ideas and insight into how we can move forward together on this key national priority.

I encourage all those who support our public health care system to come out and join us at this town hall.

Best regards and see you at the Town Hall,

Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, PC, Q.C., M.P.

My response below perhaps wasn’t that well thought out, but I wanted the Health Critic to know about our situation, and how the health care system has ultimately impacted on our journey through lyme disease. A slightly edited version follows:

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My name is David Leggett. Until November 2004, I was a secondary school principal in Toronto. I am currently completely bedbound (24/7). My wife and daughters look after me, and I have limited support from caregivers while my wife is at work. To make a long story short, I have lyme disease. Treatments failed, and I have been in bed for more than 4 years. This seems inconceivable, but even more inconceivable has been the response of the medical and health care system to my plight. Doctors will rarely treat lyme, and are not equipped to deal with the many thousands of Canadian patients who have lyme. The testing at the national labs (Winnipeg) is notoriously unreliable. In spite of this, assurances have been continuously given (esp. since 2006) that the Public Health Agency of Canada has the interests of lyme disease patients in mind and that all testing and information to doctors is sufficient. IT IS NOT!

Health Care in Canada not only needs defending, but needs some specific improvements:

1. Access to health care has not helped me, since doctors didn’t recognize my health issues. I went from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist. No one could help. After over a year of being off work and getting sicker and sicker, a sharp doctor did recognize symptoms and referred me to one of the few doctors in Canada willing to brace himself against the onslaught of the Colleges who do not approve of lyme recognition and treatment.
2. The two-tiered testing (Canadian ELISA and Western Blot) is an inappropriate standard which simply causes more suffering by missing the vast majority of those truly infected. Very few will deal with all the people with lyme disease who are missed and end up being simply shuffled off to the side.
3. A significant number of lyme sufferers and their families have chosen to sell their homes and assets, and head to specific U.S. physicians to get treatment. This is extremely costly, and is where our Health Care system is going if we are not careful. Lyme is an escalating disease which currently affects somewhere near 200,000 a year in the U.S. (as per the CDC), and likely close to 10,000 per year here in Canada. Many in positions of power scoff at this Canadian estimate, but when you get to set the testing standard, you get to dictate the results… Meanwhile, many thousands suffer.
4. My wife (primary caregiver) gets some support, and gets little sleep, burning the candle at both ends. My care is very time-consuming and stressful. I wish that she could be freed from the burden that I feel I cause for her. I am thankful for family and friends who help us in so many ways, but greater professional assistance would help. A Family Care Plan could help in this regard.

Thank you for listening. My wife was unable to attend the meeting in Toronto on Sunday, so we wanted to say our piece. I have frequently been in touch with Jack Layton – although the response was supportive, ultimately nothing substantial has changed. Will the Federal Liberals put Canadians in need of lyme diagnosis and treatment on the front burner??