Health minister provides cancer care update in Kelowna but motivation questioned

B.C. health minister Adrian Dix was in Kelowna Thursday to provide an update on the province’s 10 year cancer action plan.

“The demand for cancer care is of course at all time high and is expected to increase as our population grows,” Dix said outside of the cancer clinic. “This year alone 34,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer in B.C. and that number in 10 years will be 10,000 more people.”

Last year, the province announced a 10-year plan to improve cancer care services.

Since then, Dix said progress has been made.

“We are building four new cancer centres, B.C. cancer centres to bring cancer care closer to home in our province,” the health minister said.

Those new centres will be located in Kamloops, Nanaimo, Surrey and Burnaby.

Reading from 27 pages of notes, Dix provided a lot of detailed information on improvements being made to cancer care in B.C.

“We have hired 92  new physicians this year, cancer doctors, we have hired 32 new radiation therapists this year and 18 more are confirmed to start later this year,” he stated.

He added that screening services to detect and prevent cancer have also been expanded, providing some concrete numbers.

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“We’ve completed 27,326 more mammograms, colon and lung screenings this year. We delivered 565 more hereditary cancer screening appointments,” Dix said. “We performed 1,566 PET CT scans this year, a 10 per cent increase.  We have increased PET CT capacity by extending the hours here in Kelowna and Victoria.”

“We’re increasing treatments such as radiation, chemotherapy , and surgery faster than last year.  We are keeping our cancer centres open more hours to deliver more care,” Dix said.

“We’re delivering radiation therapy to 856 more patients this year, a 6.4 per cent increase in one year. We’ve delivered IV chemotherapy to 801 more patients across cancer centres this year. That’s an eight-per cent increase. ”

Dix also said that in some cases, the government is also covering radiation treatment stateside.

“We’re offering, as everybody knows, patient radiation treatment at one of two clinics in Bellingham, Washington to connect more people to the cancer care they need.” he said.

Dr. Michael Humer, a retired surgeon, questioned the motivation behind the news conference just a few months ahead of an election.

“I’m not sure what the announcement was today.  I congratulate the minister for coming to Kelowna, it looks like it was a political announcement and I am not sure what the announcement was today,” Humer said.

Dix, however, denied there was anything political about it.

“It’s absolutely contrary of that,” Dix said. “This is a 10-year cancer plan which we delivered in our budget. We delivered a very significant investment and we are adding services all the time including here but what this is saying to people, you make a 10-year cancer announcement, people deserve to know what has happened.”

Dix promised that if he is still the health minister, a similar update will be provided on the cancer action plan again a year from now.