Cancer Can’t Wait

I’ve heard concerns from many families in Sherwood Park about unacceptable wait times to access Alberta’s health-care system, especially for cancer treatment. Just last week I visited with a constituent who pointed out that Alberta Health Services (AHS) has stopped posting cancer treatment wait times on its website.

In Alberta, people who need their first oncology consultation are waiting an average of three months. Four weeks is the recommended window for this initial consultation for best outcomes.

We are hearing about Albertans who have been diagnosed with cancer but have to wait six months to see an oncology specialist, the doctor who can confirm the diagnosis and begin a treatment plan. During this critical period, the wait is agonizing. One person described to me that it felt like a ticking time bomb inside their body. Emotionally and physically, the experience was compounding their suffering.

With Alberta’s population growing and aging, the demand for health-care services is increasing rapidly. Our population is over 4.8 million and we are growing at almost twice the national rate.

In a recent update to members, Dr. Paul Parks, the Alberta Medical Association’s President, wrote that, “Over the past four years, 22 of 25 newly trained oncology graduates in Alberta left the province. From 2017-22, there was a 10 per cent increase in unique cancer patients, a 25 per cent increase in cancer patient visits — and just a one per cent increase in the number of oncologists. We are nowhere near keeping up. We need 35 new oncologists just to meet immediate needs. Only government can create the spaces so these specialists can be recruited to care for Albertans.”

Reducing wait times would not only save lives but it would actually save us money, both in the health-care system and the economy overall. Any delay in providing timely care often leads to more costly treatments down the road; as well as private costs, such as time away from work for the patient and their family.

Let’s bring back wait time reporting on the AHS website and add more information to help Albertans understand the patient experience from diagnosis to treatment. We cannot pretend we don’t have a problem here and the government should not be hiding it. The more Albertans know, the better people will be able to navigate their experience with cancer.

Investing in our health-care system now — by increasing funding, recruiting oncologists, and reducing wait times — will alleviate pressure on the health-care system and ultimately reduce costs to society as a whole. Ensuring that cancer patients and others receive timely, effective care is not just a matter of good policy, it’s a matter of basic human decency.

The government must act now because cancer can’t wait.

The Stollery Hospital Foundation Lemonade Stand Day is Sunday, August 25. I’ll be thinking of the children and their families agonizingly waiting to see a specialist.

Three weeks later, the Terry Fox Run happens at Broadmoor Lake. I’ll be thinking about how the prognosis for bone cancer has improved greatly, for which we are thankful. But the wait time for treatment has worsened since Terry Fox was alive.