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NFSA (Neuromodulation Foundation South Africa)
The World Health Organization (WHO) stated that chronic pain affects every 1 in 5 people and out of those every 1 of 3 people are unable to maintain an independent lifestyle. Chronic pain has also been given the title of the most common cause of disability. This project for which we request funds is targeted to provide funding for the implantation of neuromodulation devices to control chronic pain. We would in the future like to expand to provide for patients who do not have medical aid as well. We expect that patients will experience a pain reduction of up to 75% and have increased quality of life.
According to the Declaration of Montreal, we believe in the three core foundations for human rights in pain management
Article 1. The right of all people to have access to pain management without discrimination
Article 2. The right of people in pain to an acknowledgment of their pain and to be informed about how it can be assessed and managed
Article 3. The right of all people with pain to have access to appropriate assessment and treatment of the pain by adequately trained health care professionals
The objective of the NFSA is to make this neuromodulation technology accessible to more people.
The neuromodulation therapy is, unfortunately, very expensive therapy placing it out of reach of most patients EVEN IF THEY DO HAVE A MEDICAL AID.
The neuromodulation device is an implantable device similar to a cardiac pacemaker. As an implantable device medical aids see this as a ‘prosthesis’ (along with cardiac pacemakers, artificial hips, knees and shoulders, the crews and rods and devices placed in the spine during back surgery etc.)
Due to all prostheses being extremely expensive medical aids place limits on what they will pay for any prosthesis in a year. Patients who need pacemakers, spine surgery, hip, knee or shoulder replacements etc., very often need to come up with a sizeable co-payment to fund
This co-payment can range from R10 000.00 to R50 000.00. This range is influenced by:
- The device configuration to be implanted
- The medical aid the patient is a member of and their prosthesis limits. These vary from medical aid to medical aid.