Arthritis patients deserve better from Quebec
Broader access to complementary care like physiotherapy is essential, Eric Amar And Sarah Campillo say.
Cousins Caroline and MarieLine both live with inflammatory arthritis: one has ankylosing spondylitis, the other childhood arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. While both are affected, the support they receive is very different: Caroline gets compensation from her group insurance plan for her complementary care services, while MarieLine does not have such coverage.
These services are not covered by the public healthcare system.
We ask: Why not?
Both cousins need access to these services, as do the other 260,000 people in Quebec who live with various forms of inflammatory arthritis. Medication alone cannot deal with the full range of symptoms they experience — symptoms that include pain, fatigue, restricted mobility, depressed mood and other concerns that can quickly erode quality of life and make it difficult to contribute meaningfully at work, at home and in the community.
Most Quebecers, even if they are lucky enough to have access to private health coverage, will probably never receive the full care they need in order to help them live with this devastating chronic disease.
The Arthritis Society believes this gap in services for the treatment of arthritis is absurd. Quebecers with arthritis need and deserve timely access to qualified physiotherapists, occupational therapists, psychologists and social workers — services that can make an enormous impact on the patient’s ability to cope.
Therefore, we are proposing a concrete solution to the problem: the implementation of a publicly funded program of multidisciplinary teams providing front-line complementary care services for people affected by arthritis.
A complementary healthcare-based approach is the only equitable solution.
We have proposed a pilot project to test this approach. If rolled out across the province, this project would have the potential of bettering the lives of thousands of Quebecers who live with inflammatory arthritis. Patients would receive better care, and greater efficiencies would be introduced in the health-care system: a win-win solution for all. A similar arthritis-based specialty care program in Ontario has been running for 40 years, and has proven the effectiveness of such an approach.
We are fortunate in Quebec to benefit from a good public health plan, but it has its flaws. To obtain free complementary health care, a patient must obtain a prescription from their treating physician for access to a rehabilitation centre. Despite the prevalence of arthritis, we only have one rehabilitation centre (located in Montreal) that specializes in arthritis. This centre and those across Quebec have a waiting list that currently sits at 18,000 people.
Surprisingly, a holistic approach like the one we propose would be achievable at low cost for Quebec taxpayers. The indirect costs of arthritis in Quebec exceed $4 billion a year. A complementary treatment approach would reduce many of the psychological and physical barriers imposed by arthritis: more Quebecers would be able to stay employed longer and return to work sooner, reducing the social costs of the disease. Patients themselves would be relieved of an unfair financial burden when forced to access these services privately.
What’s more, this kind of program has the potential to reduce the health-care system’s bill for high-cost services such as emergency visits, consultations with medical specialists, and medication.
Transformative change like this depends on the voice of the public being heard. To that end, the Arthritis Society has launched a public-awareness campaign during this election season to encourage public support for our proposal, and we have called publicly on all political parties to express their clear commitment for this urgent health priority. We call upon Quebec’s next government to see that Quebecers living with arthritis have fair and affordable access to the appropriate and effective treatments they need.