Canada: Treatment Should Not Require Luck Part 1

Eating Disorders are brain-based, biological illnesses with a strong genetic component and a psychosocial influence. They are not disorders of choice, vanity or family dysfunction. As with autism and schizophrenia, we don't know everything, but we do know we were wrong about a lot for a very long time. Help us challenge stigma and fight for resource parity for these deadly disorders!

Canada: Treatment Should Not Require Luck Part 1

I am writing this account in response to the NIED's effort to secure funding for adequate treatment and support of patients with Eating Disorders through our healthcare system.

In the summer of 2012 our daughter was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa - not otherwise specified....she was 26 years old. We were told by professionals that there was good news and bad news. The good news was, they felt our daughter would probably respond to an inpatient treatment program - the bad news was, there are only 18 beds in Ontario and the wait list is 2 years long.... our daughter would not survive the wait. We immediately starting researching other facilities both in Ontario and the United States but were refused help as my daughter's BMI was too low; meaning she needed urgent medical care which private facilities could not give her.  Our daughter's fate was sealed - she was going to die because of underfunding of eating disorder treatment programs in our hospitals.

Our story however, does have a very happy ending. The inpatient eating disorder program at the Ottawa Hospital runs on the premise that if patients are not "buying into" the way the program is run, they are asked to leave.  By some miracle, my daughter was admitted Dec. 6th 2012* and has been recovering since March of that year. Through a lot of hard work on my daughter's part (of which we are very proud) and the fantastic care, training and medical attention she received at the Ottawa Hospital, she is healthy.....and alive! Her days are not without struggles, but because of the exceptional treatment she received, she has "tools" that help her work through them. Before admission to the hospital, my daughter was seeing a therapist who specialized in eating disorders.  I asked her a few weeks ago, "If you were not admitted to the hospital, but instead kept seeing the therapist, would you have recovered?" Without hesitation her answer was "No.  The therapist didn't make me eat like I had to in the hospital!".

My daughter was saved - it is tragic that everyone with an ED does not have the same opportunity she did.

*I have thoughts on why my daughter was admitted so quickly, but space prevents me from listing them.