A recent report from CanAge, Canada’s National Seniors’ Advocacy Organization, shares that Canada is unprepared to handle the massive rise of dementia patients in the coming years. Experts warn that this predication is set to overwhelm our health-care system.
Saskatchewan’s population has already reached one in six persons over the age of 65 and is rapidly approaching one in five.
CEO of CanAge Laura Tamblyn Watts says, “We know that Canada is a rapidly aging country and as we get older our chances of getting dementia increases significantly. So, CanAge wanted to see how are we doing in living up to our national dementia strategy promises and how are we doing also on the ground in each province and territory.”
In regard to CanAge’s report, Watts says, “It comes up with a very dire answer. No province or territory and the federal government, none of them are dementia ready.”
To put the crisis in perspective, she explains, “There is one pediatrician for 2,000 children and youth in Canada. There is one geriatrician for every 21,000 seniors and the number of geriatricians is shrinking.”
Watts explains the disparity of the situation can be traced back to the time allowance that doctors need to treat seniors.
“It’s also impossible to treat older people and particularly people with cognitive impairment in five-minute intervals. Geriatricians make less money than pediatricians and they have more work to do.”
Saskatchewan is included in the provinces that have no strategy for handling the predicted surge in dementia cases.
“Early detection is critical and in Saskatchewan only 39 per cent of GP’s feel they have confidence in detecting dementia or caring for it. So that means that, mostly, general practitioners don’t feel confident and lots of early detection is missed,” Watts says, “Without a strategy, we are going to be throwing good money after bad and we don’t really target where investments and support are most needed. So, this is an area we are hoping this government moves on quickly.”
“The Alzheimer’s Society of Saskatchewan board has named the development of a provincial dementia strategy as a priority for our province,” says Joanne Bracken, CEO of Alzheimer’s Society, “We think the strategy would be best led by the Government of Saskatchewan through the Ministry of Health as one of the leaders of the strategy. We do believe that the Alzheimer’s Society would be an important stakeholder in that as well as other organizations.”
Bracken adds that a key role in preventing a provincial dementia crisis would be the implementation of more geriatricians.
“For a long time, our province only had one royal college certified geriatrician. We have now increased that number to five so, that is certainly an improvement. The need for people that have that specialization is really important.”
Bracken feels positively about the province’s interest in the situation and adds, “We do have a good working relationship with the province. We receive significant funding to support people living with dementia.”
“I think we have a good start but as this report indicates (CanAge report), and as the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada report indicates, we need a more specific dementia strategy and it needs to be actioned with resources and priorities for that to move forward, so we are optimistic about their interest in dementia care in the province and that they will be willing to work out a strategy for people living with dementia in our province.
Global News requested comments from province but did not hear back before publication.
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