IN THE LEDGE – Promised Kamloops cancer centre in line for PET-CT scanner

Excerpt from Question Period in the B.C. Legislature on Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023.

K. Falcon: I’m sure British Columbians feel comforted knowing that after seven years of government, the NDP finally introduced a ten-year cancer plan. But the reality is that B.C. cancer wait times are now among the worst. New documents reveal that the Premier’s band-aid response to the crisis is grossly underdelivering and failing to meet their own targets they set.

The opposition has acquired documents revealing that half a year in, not only has cancer care gotten to the point where they are outsourcing patients to hospitals in the United States — what makes it even worse is — they can’t even send the number of patients that they’ve contracted for. An average of 12 patients a week have been treated in the United States. It’s not even close to the over 50 patients per week that the NDP contracted with U.S. hospitals for.

My question to the Premier: After seven years of mismanaging our health care system, how can the Premier stand here and pretend cancer care is a priority when patients are literally dying on wait-lists, waiting to get basic cancer care?

Hon. A. Dix: What the member is referring to is radiation therapy. And yes, we contracted with facilities in Bellingham because while we’re doing, I think, a very significant and important investment in cancer care, we want to ensure that people who need care now get it. And that contract, as the member will know, is for up to 50 patients a week. We wanted to have that capacity, and patients in the hundreds have gone to the United States and got that treatment. It just shows our determination to act in every element of cancer care.

I might note, for example, on diagnostic care that the only PET-CT scanners that existed when I became Minister of Health were in Vancouver. We’ve added in Kelowna and Victoria. We’re adding in multiple other communities as we add cancer centres: in Nanaimo and in Kamloops and in Burnaby and in Surrey.

This is building out the cancer system we need now and in the future, and we’re going to continue to do it.

Mr. Speaker: Leader of the Official Opposition, second supplemental.

K. Falcon: Six months into the NDP’s outsourcing of B.C. cancer patients to the U.S., we’re now seeing it’s a glaring failure, resulting in less than a quarter of those that it was supposed to help actually getting the treatment.

Repeated NDP mismanagement of our cancer care system has hurt patients like Allison Decluzeau. Diagnosed with stage 4 abdominal cancer, she faced the shocking reality in B.C. and was told to get her affairs in order, to prepare for the end of her life, not to get treatment. Allison, abandoned by B.C.’s cancer care system, found immediate life-saving treatment in the United States, fortunately. In her words, under this NDP Premier: “Universal health care does not exist. It’s do-it-yourself health care and GoFundMe health care.”

My question to the Premier, how many more patients like Allison must suffer before they can get the basic access to cancer care that they deserve?

Hon. A. Dix: It’s my view, and it has been our direction and our policy, to add resources throughout our cancer centre system.

As I noted to the Leader of the Opposition in response to his first question, we’ve added, since April 1, on oncology alone, 61 oncologists. We continue to invest in every aspect of our cancer centre system — adding a lung cancer screening program, building new cancer centres, adding new diagnostic equipment — and we’re going to continue to do that work together.

We know that we have a growing and an aging population, and we’re responding to that with a massive and comprehensive response. We’re going to continue to do this. This contrasts with the underinvestment in cancer that occurred for at least a decade prior to my becoming Minister of Health.

We’re going to continue to invest and continue to support people, because just the story raised by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, I think, shows the absolute need, when people need care, the absolute need to provide it.

Source: BC Hansard