McMaster receives funding to help patients with chronic illness

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If you suffer from a chronic illness, there’s new hope coming from McMaster University. The Federal government is spending over $60 million for research that is not only focused on patients but asks for their input to help develop new treatments.

Federal Health Minister and family doctor Jane Philpott announced $62 million in funding for 5 new research networks, two of which will be at McMaster in Hamilton, the others are located at McGill in Montreal, the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia. Each one will have a different focus. At UBC it will be chronic kidney disease. McGill will do research for children with a brain disability. U of T will focus on diabetes, while McMaster will research gastro intestinal disease and chronic pain.

Dr. Norman Buckley heads up chronic pain research at Mac and he says the excitement not only comes from a significant boost in funding, but focusing on patient oriented research.  The idea of patient oriented research means that the patients won’t simply sit around and wait for a cure but they’ll actually help set the tone for research and hopefully find a more effective solution.

“Researchers need to know how to work with patients, how to listen to them because they basically speak different languages.” Dr. Norman Buckley.

This focus on research with patients is expected to develop better methods for daily management of things like pain, methods that can be taught to your family doctor.