Madam Chair, I have a letter from a Canadian medical doctor who has been practising since 1969, which states:
I have MS since 1990 and just got back from Poland where I had balloon angioplasty to a stenotic right internal jugular vein. I have noticed improvements in several areas.
I also met many Canadians in Ketovice, Poland who had been treated, with positive results. They were ecstatic and so grateful to an improvement to their quality of life.
Two-thirds of all the people treated by Dr. Simka and his colleagues...are Canadians. There are 2,000 people on the waiting list.
The argument in Canada by neurologists is that we need more studies before we can do this in Canada. The only way you do a study is by treating people and a follow-up. Neurologists should have no input into this aspect of treating MS. They are not vascular surgeons.
There is no problem paying for angioplasty for coronary artery stenosis or surgery for carotid artery stenosis. Why the discrimination to veinous stenosis?