More should be done to combat lung disease: report

A Manitoba expert on lung disease says the province is ignoring an illness that claims 300 lives every year in the province.

In a national report released this week, the Lung Association gave Manitoba a "C+" for its management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a lung disease blamed on heavy smoking.

COPD causes airways in the lungs to become inflamed and obstructed, causing coughing or shortness of breath. The two major forms on the disease are chronic bronchitis and emphysema. About 80,000 Manitobans suffer from COPD, and a quarter of those cases are serious.

• LUNG ASSOCIATION: More on COPD

Dr. Sat Sharma, a lung specialist at the Health Sciences Centre, says COPD is "not on the radar" of the health care system. Sharma says there are only four programs available to help people quit smoking and learn to live with the disease and COPD is gaining ground: it is the fourth leading cause of death in Canada.

"In women, it surpassed breast-cancer deaths this year," he points out.

The Lung Association report called on the Manitoba government to develop a strategy to deal with COPD, to provide funding for certain treatment drugs through the provincial drug plan, and to increase funding to rehabilitation programs to improve access to pulmonary rehabilitation, a treatment for the disease.

COPD sufferer urges young smokers to quit

Bill Scowcroft, a geneticist and biologist, admits that as a scientist, he should have known better than to ignore the warnings about smoking over the four decades he smoked. He found out he had COPD six years after he quit smoking.

"People who have this disease, so many of them sort of give up," he said. "They're tied to an oxygen cylinder, and they're basically housebound."

Now, Scowcroft wants to get the word about COPD out to young people especially young smokers.

"It's future disease for smokers. I call it the 20/20 disease: it's 20 cigarettes a day for 20 years, that puts you into the risk category," he said. "If you keep smoking after that, you increase the risk, because it takes another 20 years for the disease to manifest itself."

Scowcroft says it breaks his heart to see young women smoking: "One or two in five of them are going to end up the same way I am."

He says Manitoba needs more programs to help people quit smoking and help them get on with life once they have the disease.