Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Vancouver Complex Chronic Illnesses hires medical director

What's been buzzing in the last day is that Dr Alison Bested, who is a pathologist hematologist in Toronto has been hired to the incoming Complex Chronic Disease Clinic in Vancouver.

Dr Bested has been advocating for patients with ME in Ontario for many many years. She has also written a book. She is now leaving the Environmental Clinic, which was a diagnosis but no treatment clinic. She has been a co-author of the 2003 Canadian Consensus Criteria document.

Pamela Fayerman, a Vancouver Sun journalist who covers health, has written on the matter, and sums it all in this article, and she even quoted me:


Kati Debelic, a chronic fatigue syndrome patient and advocate said CFS sufferers welcomed Bested’s appointment.
“We wish her luck in building a clinic [that] will provide competent and evidence-based health care for the most neglected diseases of them all,” Debelic said in an email.
“Patients have been waiting for a long time for this piece of news and are looking forward to the day this clinic is finally reality. For some of my fellow patients, the wait has been unbearable.”


I hope that this turn of event is just the beginning of good care, respect, and actual treatments for patients with ME in British Columbia.

I hope that Dr Bested will embrace her role fiercely and will be able to dig us access to the laboratory tests that we need, including NK cell function, lymphocyte subset, viral titers and the latest in evidence based practices from other clinics around the world. Patients have the right to health care just like every other diseases, and patients have the right to have this disease properly researched.

So I welcome Dr Bested, wishing her easy transition to the next stage of her career.

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