The number is a little unsettling, especially if you’re someone dealing with Parkinson’s disease: in southwestern Ontario, the ratio of neurologists to patients with Parkinson’s is 1:1400.
That sobering figure was delivered at Stratford city council’s meeting Tuesday, Oct. 15 by Stephen Owen, a community engagement coordinator for the Parkinson Society of Southwestern Ontario’s (PSSO) central region. He came to address his group’s need for recognition and support, saying that despite the facts there is always room for hope.
“The prevalence of Parkinson’s is, unfortunately, growing, and the numbers I mentioned are from 2021,” he said. “It was estimated at that point that nationwide there were 100,000 individuals living with the disease and 43,000 of them are in Ontario with more than 10,000 people in southwestern Ontario. Parkinson’s diagnosis rates are expected to double by 2031, which means our client base is about to grow rapidly and more people will need our support.”
He added to that, saying the PSSO recently added three new community engagement coordinators like himself, and that they are doing their best to live up to the mandate of the organization: Hope is close to home.
“The four of us manage our region’s support groups, facilitating where we don’t have volunteers yet, and we organize programs and services,” he said. “We help orchestrate regional conferences, plan and run workshops, monthly webinars, submit grant applications, seek education opportunities and provide awareness at colleges and universities. The PSSO has been the main source of support for people living with Parkinson’s disease in this part of Ontario since 1990 and continues to be the local support, serving our communities. Our goal is, was and always will be to create the very best community for everyone living with or affected by Parkinson’s disease in our community.”
Going back to his comments on the lack of neurologists in this part of the province, Owen said PSSO would love to see more in the area but they have little influence over making that happen. As the disease grows more prevalent, PSSO continues its work with all levels of government to make sure care is not a foreign concept for those suffering.
“We work with the federal government making it easier for foreign-trained doctors to come to Canada to practice, and we work with the province attracting doctors and helping to make the transition/education transference easier,” he said. “In local areas, we work to give those Parkinson’s-specific neurologists a place to practice. As you can imagine, larger centres like London are home to a larger number of neurologists, but our southwestern Ontario region is vast and people have to travel long distances to appointments after waiting sometimes up to 24 months to see (a specialist).”
By increasing the awareness of the PSSO and its offerings, Owen hopes that knowledge of their existence will translate into greater support and, eventually, greater results in their work.
“Our hope is that more people pre-and-post diagnosis would avail themselves of the information we provide, and we would also love it if more physicians and neurologists referred their patients to us to use the pre-and-post diagnosis information, services and support,” he said. “Right now, that unfortunately doesn’t happen organically as much as we’d like, to the benefits of individuals living with Parkinson’s. We hear very disturbing stories of people learning of their diagnosis and then feeling like they’re in an information vacuum. Google is seldom anyone’s friend when it comes to combing through the ‘information’ out there. Part of our mandate is to encourage physicians/neurologists to direct their patients to PSSO. Progress is incrementally happening.”
The Parkinson Society Southwestern Ontario can be found here.
