Epilepsy response needs a boost

Stakeholders seeking improved conditions for people with epilepsy are bemoaning that Jamaica is still without a coordinated system to respond to individuals with the neurological condition.

According to Dr Amza Ali, president of the Jamaican League Against Epilepsy, while the group has managed to secure a few privileges for epilepsy patients, a lot more needs to be done.

"Overseas, epilepsy is looked after by multidisciplinary groups, where people of different background and aspects of expertise come together to address the multi-faceted requirements of people with epilepsy," Ali said at a Gleaner Editors' Forum last week.

He wants a regionally integrated policy including Jamaica to address epilepsy issues across the Caribbean.

Due to the efforts of the league, the last national census was designed to identify the number of people in the island with epilepsy, and some medications are now listed on the National Health Fund's (NHF) drug list.

Expensive drugs

But for drugs that are not subsidised, patients are sometimes unable to afford them.

Consultant paediatric neurologist at the Bustamante Hospital for Children, Dr Judy Tapper, said persons with seizures are normally placed on medications to control their illness, but she explained that some patients cannot afford some of the newly introduced medications, which are not covered by NHF.

"Some of them can be quite expensive," she said.

To thoroughly investigate a patient who is presenting with epilepsy, an electroencephalogram (EEG) test is done.

But Tapper says sometimes this is out of the reach of patients.

"There are services in the public-health system for this but unfortunately one of the main tools for investigating a patient with epilepsy, the EEG, is available at a cost," she added.

The EEG is offered in the public-health sector for $10,000 while private patients have to pay $20,000 to get the important diagnosis done.

Tapper said 70 per cent of the persons diagnosed with the illness can have their seizures controlled once the right diagnosis is made.

Epilepsy is caused by a wide variety of conditions. Ten or 11 per cent of persons who have a stroke or head injury will develop epilepsy.