Donegal People Urged to Attend National ‘Patients’ Conference

Added: 04-06-2012 08:42:04

The Parkinson’s Association of Ireland urges people to attend a one-day National ‘Patients’ Conference next month.

Ann Foxe, Chairperson of the Donegal branch of the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland (PAI), is urging Donegal patients and family members to attend the most significant gathering of Parkinson’s patients in Ireland – a one-day National ‘Patients’ Conference next month that will kick off the Movement Disorder Society’s (MDS) 16th international Congress in Dublin.

Ireland has a third-world standard of care for people with Parkinson’s Disease and other neurological disorders, Ms Foxe has stated.

The Parkinson’s Association of Ireland National Patients’ Conference will be held on June 17th next at the National Conference Centre and will be attended by over 700 patients from around Ireland. It will open the week long MDS conference, which will be attended by 5,000 delegates, including some of the world’s leading movement disorder experts, a number of whom will speak at the Parkinson’s Association of Ireland Patients’ Conference.

“Latest research shows that 17% of the population in Ireland have a neurological condition and Parkinson’s accounts for a large proportion of that. Yet we only have half the recommended number of neurologists working in our public health system,” said Foxe.

Internationally we compare very poorly. We have only one neurologist per 200,000 and Italy, by contrast, has one per 1,000, Ms Foxe pointed out.

Pat O’Rourke, Chairman, Parkinson’s Association of Ireland said that approximately over 1,200 of Ireland’s 8,000 Parkinson’s patients are in need of a surgery that could change their lives but yet have to travel to the UK, France and elsewhere for it.

The surgery, Deep Brain Stimulation, has only been trialled twice in Ireland but the HSE has, in the meantime, been sending patents abroad for the surgery at a cost of up to €50,000 per patient.

Mr O’Rourke stated that only a small number of the people who can have this treatment and benefit from it are even aware of it. He went on to say that the HSE is paying for this surgery abroad when it would be much cheaper to perform it at home and we could then treat so many more.