NDP to cut wait times for cancer treatment

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This article was published 13/09/2011 (5171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A re-elected NDP government would make cancer wait times the shortest in the country, Premier Greg Selinger and Health Minister Theresa Oswald said Monday.

The NDP’s $19.5-million cancer plan is aimed at diagnosing cancer faster and allowing more patients to fight the disease either in their own homes with prescribed medication or at least closer to home for Manitobans who live outside Winnipeg.

“The faster we address these concerns the more lives will be saved and more Manitobans will be able to function normally and be productive members of our community,” Selinger said.

Conservative Leader Hugh McFadyen said if the NDP were genuine in helping cancer patients, it would have implemented these measures before the election. For example, many other provinces already cover 100 per cent of the cost of oral cancer drugs, something the NDP promises to do if it’s re-elected. “They’ve been the slowest in Canada to approve those medications for cancer patients,” McFadyen said. “This death-bed conversion is just not convincing.”

Selinger said the funding — about two per cent of revenue from the province’s tobacco tax — puts a plan in place stemming from a $40-million initiative announced in June to reduce wait times for key cancer treatments to two months from the current three to nine months. “We think it’s a good program regardless if there’s an election on or not,” Selinger said.

Cancer patient Michael Geiger-Wolf said the program being touted by the NDP will allow more patients, who take medication to treat the disease, to stay at home rather than go to hospital for chemotherapy.

“In the time it takes to pour a glass of water, we can undergo treatment,” Geiger-Wolf said. “This announcement frees me and those like me from the stress of deciding if we can afford treatment or support drugs.”

Dr. Dhali Dhaliwal of CancerCare Manitoba said the initiative announced by Selinger and Oswald will help thousands of patients and their families as cancer cases are expected to increase as the population ages. “It will eliminate inefficiencies which I think is the way forward in that, with the doubling of the cancer load over next 20 years, it will give us the ability to do more for each patient,” he said.

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca