When Pat Boston was a young health care trainee in the 60s, she was taken to a polio ward. "There were eight iron lungs in the ward," she recalls. "I will never forget that room holding eight long cylinders. There was absolute silence except the whooshing sound that came from the breathing apparatus."
This vivid memory has stayed with Boston and has motivated her to become active in Rotary International's latest effort. "Rotary International has the mandate to raise $200 million by June 2012, that money goes to alleviating polio," Boston said. "And Bowen Rotary began fundraising a few months ago." On Thursday, March 22, at 6 p.m., Bowen Rotary will host a polio fundraiser at Rivendell Retreat Centre.
Boston is the director of palliative care at the UBC Department of Family Medicine. She joined the Bowen Island Rotary Club in the spring of 2011 and is now a board member. "I have a mandate to help with developing health-related projects and that includes fundraising," she said.
"The iron lung works by creating an airtight seal around the patient who is lying on the back," Boston said. "The only part that is visible is the head. A pump raises the air pressure and then deflates it to assist the muscles." Boston explained that, in polio, the muscles atrophy.
Living in fear of polio was characteristic of the 50s and 60s in Britain and many other countries, Boston recalls. "There were polio epidemics. You can get polio in many forms, but back then, it was the severe paralytic form. Then they developed the vaccine, and by the early 70s, polio had been eradicated in the western world. In the decades after, it was considered to be a disease that we no longer needed to worry about."
But in recent years, polio started to emerge again, especially in developing counties, says Boston. "Among the countries most affected now are Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Chad, and the Democratic Republic of Congo," Boston said. "It is a highly infectious disease. You can contract the virus the way you get a flu and the symptoms are fever, headache, fatigue, vomiting and pain in the limbs, very similar to the flu."
Boston thinks that there have probably always been cases of polio in developing countries as funds for immunization are scarce. "I do work in India from time to time and I realize that many people can't pay [for health care] so they have to do without. To eradicate polio in these areas, we need money," Boston says.
Boston says that Rotary International's initiative was inspired by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that gave US$355 million to polio eradication.
"Rotary International supports many health initiatives and committed to match the funds," Boston said. "The push will be toward vaccination. Polio is highly infectious and there is no cure but it is preventable."
The funds raised will go toward developing immunization programs, financing vaccine and administering it, says Boston. "The whole notion it to stop [the disease] by increasing infant immunization and then to monitor for the virus particularly in children under 15 years of age and to be able to supply supplementary vaccine."
SUSANNE MARTIN
editor
