John L. Lehr, the chief executive officer of the Parkinson’s Foundation, recently published an article titled “Working Toward a World Without Parkinson’s Disease.” The first paragraph ends with these optimistic words:
While there is no cure for Parkinson’s and no proven way to slow its progression, there is new reason to hope for a world without Parkinson’s.
Most of the article is upbeat in tone. Yet one paragraph stands out as disturbing. Here it is in its entirety:
The symposium included discussion of the disparities that prevent many people with Parkinson’s from receiving the best care. In the US, only a small percentage of people with Parkinson’s receive the specialist care that can help them live well. Women living with Parkinson’s are less likely than men to see a specialist. Few people of color participate in clinical trials for new therapies. And around the world, people in dozens of countries do not have access even to today’s gold-standard medical therapy, levodopa.
While finding a cure for PD may still take years, what’s up with this inequity of care that exists now – but doesn’t have to? So many Parkies, in the USA and elsewhere, could be living much healthier, happier lives, if they could access the medications and the treatments that already exist. It’s a problem that doesn’t have to be.
Last week I wrote about the issues that gay people (actually, the entire LGBTQ spectrum) face in getting medical care and social services that straight people receive without question. (And again this week.) I included a discussion of a parallel situation, noting that gay and bisexual African American men in America, especially the American south, as a group have the highest rate of HIV infection in the world – higher than Swaziland, a tiny African nation, which officially has the world’s highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. This, too, doesn’t have to be.
This issue of unequal access to PD health care is shocking – especially in countries like the USA, where so many resources exist. And with the current American President and Republican Congress’ desire to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, it seems the situation will only worsen. There’s talk of charging older people more (perhaps prohibitively more) for health insurance than young people, and the issue of pre-existing conditions is on the table, off the table, on the table again.
What kind of illogical (emphasis on the “ill”) country is this?
