By Tracy Bowden
Former Hawke government minister Barry Cohen has revealed he has dementia and is calling on the Federal Government to do more in the search for a cure.
There are now more than 330,000 Australians with living with dementia – a number expected to triple by 2050.
“People like Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten, and they are both friends of mine, they have got to put it on the front pages,” Mr Cohen told 7.30.
“I want to see politicians standing up in the House and asking questions: what are we doing about Alzheimer’s?”
Mr Cohen now counts himself amongst those 330,000, although he is still struggling to accept the diagnosis and its implications.
He received the news that something was wrong after a series of falls.
“I had another fall and another fall and so they put me into hospital and said ‘we think he has got early stage of dementia’,” he said.
“I’m more doubtful about the diagnosis but I’m prepared to accept the fact that it is, and everybody who knows me from former prime ministers down through the years has said ‘what the hell are you doing here?’.”
Initially he was placed into a nursing home, an experience he would rather forget.
“I was miserable as a bandicoot, you have no idea how depressed I would get,” he said.
“There is nothing to do, you lie on the bed, stare at the ceiling, eat three meals a day and watch television.”
We’ve got to get serious about this at the top level: Cohen
Returning to his home outside Canberra, Mr Cohen was extremely emotional as he spoke about being back in the care of his wife and son.
“The last couple of days have been the happiest of my life because I love her and him,” he said.
While firing off statistics about the number of people with dementia and the projected numbers for the future, Mr Cohen was focused on finding answers.
While there are medications that can control some of the symptoms of dementia, there is no drug that can stop or reverse the disease.
“We’ve got to get serious about this at the top level, and I am not talking about Labor or Liberal – they are both the same, they are just becoming aware that we are facing a real crisis and we have to act now ’cause in 20 years’ time there won’t be 300,000 there will be 900,000 and maybe more,” Mr Cohen said.
“We don’t hesitate about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a submarine, for God’s sake.
“I’d rather have a few thousand people alive than a submarine.”
In the 2014 budget the Federal Government committed an extra $200 million to Australian scientists and medical researchers working on ways to prevent or cure dementia, but Mr Cohen wants more.
“Let’s try and find a cure,” he said. “We have put aside $200 million for research over the next five years.”
“Double it, treble it. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people’s lives, and not just being alive but enjoying lives.”
He is still writing newspaper columns and hopes that by adding his voice to the call for more research, it might make a difference.
“People like me get it and we get others excited and then the media get onto it and then, bingo,” Mr Cohen said.
He is urging all Australians to join him in putting pressure on the politicians.
“Drive your local member mad – they didn’t mind driving me mad.”