Should We? Should We Not?

"Why should I have to wait that long? Why can't more be done here, sooner, to investigate such a simple method?" Bart Bakker, Ottawa MS sufferer

Canada's universal medicare system is expected to be all things to all people. To respond to all the ills, the chronic wasting diseases, the unfortunate health conditions, surgical emergencies, exotic maladies that afflict a population of thirty-four million people. The system is overburdened.

Canadians are not a particularly health-absorbed community, which is to say, we do not take ownership of our own responsibility respecting our health. We have a propensity to live recklessly and to expect our universal health system to make us whole again.

That old adage of everything in moderation is steadfastly ignored by people. We are not moderate, reasonable people when it comes to the kinds of foods we consume, nor the size of the servings we prefer. We do not educate ourselves about healthy choices of the nutrition or-less we consume, nor do we exercise our bodies adequately. The results of which are obesity in people of all ages, leading to health complications.

Which is only one facet of the impact of our lifestyles on our health. But then there are impacts on our health we can do little to prevent, and auto-immune diseases fall into that category. As do also incidents relating to accidents, occasioning broken bones and worse, and epidemics that occur and spread rapidly in an increasingly connected world of travel and communications.

Who, other than multiple sclerosis-sufferers knew that Canada has one of the highest rates of MS in the world? And that Alberta and Saskatchewan the highest rates within Canada? Multiple sclerosis is a dreadfully debilitating disease, whose source is unknown. Long held to be auto-immune in nature, that hypothesis has been challenged by an Italian vascular surgeon, Paolo Zamboni who claims to have discovered MS to be in reality caused by iron deposits building in the veins leading to the brain.

And the solution to that situation, according to the good doctor, is to unblock the affected veins with the use of balloon angioplasty and stents so that cranial blood flow may recommence.

There are more than sufficient first-hand accounts of MS sufferers finding their conditions vastly ameliorated to the extent that they can now, post-surgery, live fairly normal lives. Yet Dr. Zamboni's findings have not been corroborated by other medical researchers. Not for lack of trying, since medical scientists in Germany, Sweden and the United States have attempted to find what he has found, but to no avail.

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has just recently promised MS sufferers that his province is prepared to "...fund clinical trials of a controversial treatment for multiple sclerosis"; named the "liberation" procedure. Willing to put the province's treasury for medical discovery on the line in the search for an "avenue of hope" for people stricken with multiple sclerosis. MS sufferers, needless to say, are ecstatic.

Wouldn't anyone suffering from such a dread condition be thankful to the point of overjoyed that they would be able to undergo the surgical procedure right at home rather than travel to Italy, Poland, India or Bulgaria to undergo the procedure? The medical community outside Saskatchewan is highly critical of this decision to the point of exhibiting scorn. But Premier Wall is determined to forge ahead.

"We know there's not unanimity amongst the various groups out there about this particular treatment. But we know anecdotally, and to some extent empirically, that there's reason for hope here." Premier Brad Wall, Saskatchewan.

Sounds good to me. If I had a choice it would be to proceed. Much depends on the outcome for so many people whose futures look increasingly dim. It makes infinitely more sense on humanitarian grounds alone for a province to commit itself to just such an action, rather than the one recently declared by the Province of Quebec, to cover the costs of in-vitro fertilization. The former is an absolute necessity, the latter a pathetic conceit.

Needless to say, this is a personal opinion. Isn't everything?