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www.durhamrcgion.com THE CANADIAN STATESMAN, DECEMBER 31, 2003 PAGE 5 Young man carries life around in box Aaron Knox needs a heart transplant. Mental Health freedom from BY CARLY FOSTER Staff Writer DURHAM - Aaron Knox has no qualms telling you about the machine that keeps him alive. The Oshawa resident, who is 28, looks like a teenager, dressed in baggy grey sweatpants, sweatpants, an Old Navy T-shirt and runners, and toting a small black knapsack over his shoulders. shoulders. A gentle 'whoosh' and 'click' emanates from his body. "Unless someone mentions it, I forget about it," Mr. Knox says with a shrug. Pulling up his shirt, he reveals a thick gauze pad with a maze of wires that snake back to a grey box and batteries in his knapsack. Young-looking, yes, but the scars and machine show his years. In April, Mr. Knox got sick. He felt tired all the time, was vomiting; he thought it was the flu. Instead, he had a viral infection infection that filled his lungs, then his heart, with fluid. He bounced in and out of hospital for four months. Next, Mr. Knox suffered congestive heart failure. His heart was so big it didn't fit on the ultrasound screen. He needed needed a heart transplant. So doctors at Toronto General General Hospital implanted a special special pump into the heart, a left ventricular assist device (LVAD). Weighing about three pounds and made mostly out of titanium, the pump keeps blood flowing through Mr. Knox's body. "Now it just feels like any other part of my body," he says of the pump, which felt like "100 pounds" when it was first put in. "Everyone who knows me tries to treat me like I'm nor mal, not some guy with this in me," he says, pointing to his chest. The LVAD is a temporary solution while Mr. Knox waits for a heart. He carries a little beeper so he can be reached immediately immediately if one becomes available. available. Life used to be about his job in a shop making sunrooms, his wife and two kids, who arc 5 and 8. Now it's about survival and patience. "I look at things different now, I notice the little things," Mr. Knox said, like walking up the street to the video store. He spends a lot of time with his children. "Ultimately, 1 don't know what's going to happen to me, so I spend every moment being very positive. I don't sit at home and cry because how will that help? "If I think negative, I send those thoughts to my body." Dr. Rakesh Bhargava, a renowned cardiologist who is helping treat Mr. Knox at the heart-care research and coronary coronary prevention and rehab program program in Oshawa, calls Mr. Knox's talc "a story of hope and courage." "This is not kid's play, this is serious stuff," he said. ""He's doing remarkably well...when patients get depressed, they don't do as well, their recovery is not as good. "This gives him a new lease on life until the transplant." The waiting list fora heart is long, from 12 to 18 months. Mr. Knox is higher up since he's relying on the LVAD to keep him alive. He never gave a second thought to organ donation before before this. Now, though, he encourages encourages everyone to sign his or her card. Centre wants a fair funding model, full ministry control More money needed to meet service demand BY DAVID BLUMENFELD Staff Writer DURHAM -- People with serious mental illnesses continue continue to wait for services and will go on receiving a lower level of care than they need, due to delays delays in mental health-care reform reform in Durham and neighbouring neighbouring areas, according to- a report by a regional mental health task force. The Central East (Whitby) Mental Health Implementation Task Force is one of nine established established in 1999 by the Ministry Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to make recommendations recommendations for the improvement of provincial mental health care services. The group noted repeated repeated delays in transferring the management of the Whitby Mental Health Centre from the ministry to an independent hospital board is having "a serous impact on the patients and hospital staff." The report also noted the regions regions of Durham and York, the City of Kawartha Lakes and the counties of Haliburton, Northumberland and Peterborough Peterborough - all served by the WMHC - have the lowest per- capita funding for community mental health programs in Ontario. Ontario. Jean Achmatowicz- MacLeod, chairman of the Whitby task force, said the money the region receives is just half the provincial average. average. "My argument has always been...there has to be equity in mental health services in our province and there isn't right now, and it has to be corrected," corrected," she said. "It's really bad in our region. Right now, we're at the bottom of the barrel." The lack of funding by the ministry, coupled with "enormous" "enormous" population growth in Durham and York regions, makes service delivery a challenge challenge for the mental heath sec tor, but people trying to access mental health services face an even greater challenge, Ms. Achmatowicz-MacLeod said. The task force found between between 1996 and 2001, Durham Region's population increased by 10.5 per cent and York Region's Region's population jumped by 23 per cent, while Ontario's population grew by only 6 per cent. "There has to be something added. Hospital workers have great innovation, but innovation innovation only goes so far. You need some extra money in the system," system," Ms. ■ Achmatowicz- MacLeod said. WMHC administrator Ron Ballantyne said one - step in correcting the problem is divestment divestment of the centre from the ministry to an independent board, a key recommendation detailed in the report. The transfer would allow the facility to target services to the needs of the area by allowing allowing the centre to manage specific specific programs and allocate funding itself. Currently, such program administration is handed down by the ministry, Mr. Ballantyne said. Seven of 10 provincial psychiatric psychiatric hospitals in Ontario have been divested with only Whitby, North Bay and Pene- tanguishene still under full ministry control. "They (divested hospitals) have been able to move forward, forward, to get opportunities for improvement of mental-heath services, but the Whitby Mental Mental Health Centre (is) left in this holding pattern," said Mr. Ballantyne. "We're stalled on those kind of planning issues. We're not able to enter into partnerships with other organizations as we normally would...and the uncertainty uncertainty associated with the delay of divestment continues to post a difficulty in respect to (maintaining) staff and the ability to effectively plan mental mental health services." The task force report said that if divestment had occurred earlier a 55-day strike that affected affected the centre last year would not have occurred. Mr. Ballantyne said labour disruption might happen again next year. "Divestment was supposed to happen in July 1998. Can you afford to compromise patients' patients' lives and treatment indefinitely?" indefinitely?" he asked, referring to the delay. John Letherby, spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, said Health Minister George Smitherman needs time to digest the overall picture of mental health care in the province before any changes are made. "Time is going to be needed before anything moves forward with regard to that site," Mr. Letherby said. "The Whitby situation is obviously one E o o where the minister is going to want to ensure lie's up to date. "By the presentation of these reports, a large first step has been taken to address any perceived or factual inequities that seem to be out there in different different parts of the province. Certainly, there are areas where more needs to be done," he said. Ms. Achmatowicz- MacLeod said the fact that the new provincial government released released the report so quickly after taking office is a "positive sign" they are committed to mental-health reform in the province. 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