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It took time for Michele Walsh to learn the toll arthritis can take.<\/p>\n
Walsh, who lives in St. John’s, was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 27 and soon after, applied for life insurance.<\/p>\n
“When I told them I had rheumatoid arthritis, they were going to charge me more money and I didn’t understand. I said ‘Why? It’s only arthritis. Why?” she said.<\/p>\n
It was only in her 30s that the answer started to become clear, and she saw how it negatively impacted her knees and hands, adding, “I couldn’t dress myself.”<\/p>\n
It made things most people take for granted impossible for her.<\/p>\n
“I took a bath but I couldn’t get out of my tub and it was before portable phones. So I was in the tub for five hours trying to get out and I let the water out, which was probably a mistake,” said Walsh.<\/p>\n
She worked at an office job but the burden of the disease continued to grow.<\/p>\n
“I went out in my car and I couldn’t grasp my key well enough to turn it in my car. The first time that happened, I called my husband and I went to work,” said Walsh. “The next day it happened. I sat in my front porch and I cried because I knew I couldn’t go to work.”<\/p>\n
That’s one of the deeply personal and societal costs of debilitating arthritism, a disease that causes debilitating damage in joints. It eventually forced Walsh to retire early.<\/p>\n
“This disease takes people out of the workforce. So you’re taking away a lot of good, educated, skilled individuals,” said Walsh.<\/p>\n
Arthritis Society research looks at financial impact<\/p>\n
It’s something Arthritis Society Canada aimed to quantify when it commissioned Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA) to research the economic and social toll of the disease.<\/p>\n
More than 100,000 people in Newfoundland and Labrador have arthritis, a disease the society says afflicts six million people across Canada.<\/p>\n
The research found the annual health care and workforce cost of arthritis in N.L. is more than half a billion dollars annually, and the cost for all of Canada is almost $46 billion annually.<\/p>\n
The society’s president Trish Barbato is calling for change. She says wait times for joint replacements and specialist appointments are too long across Canada.<\/p>\n
“There are some people with rheumatoid arthritis who should be on disease modifying drugs as soon as possible and they can’t wait like two years or five years to get diagnosed while their joints are being destroyed,” Barbato said.<\/p>\n
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Trish Barbato, president of Arthritis Society Canada, says wait times for joint replacements and specialist appointments are too long across Canada. (CBC)<\/p>\n
Across the country wait times for joint replacement surgeries to treat arthritis are also unacceptably long, she said.<\/p>\n
“We have a target\u2026 the target national target is a six month wait and nobody is meeting that. Like, no one is meeting that and having 100 per cent of their patients getting seen in six months. So we have a lot of work to do to improve that,” she said.<\/p>\n
Barbato said the society’s research shows if nothing is done, the toll of arthritis will only continue to mount.<\/p>\n
The rates of arthritis in N.L. is expected to increase as the province’s population continues to age. Arthritis Society Canada projects the number of people living with the disease across the country will hit 10 million by 2055.<\/p>\n
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