Image Credit: Flickr / Province of B.C.

By Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Todd Stone

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SOUND OFF: NDP’s cancer care crisis putting people at risk

Dec 7, 2023 | 12:56 PM

CANCER CARE HAS BEEN A SENSITIVE TOPIC in Kamloops for quite some time now — a trail of broken promises that leads right back to the current NDP government. However, the NDP’s failure to deliver cancer care now extends even beyond the Kamloops cancer center they committed to three years ago and have still not delivered a business plan for.

In fact, on a provincial level, we are seeing a new crisis unfold that is putting British Columbians at risk.

For a while now, radiologists and oncologists in B.C. have been warning of a potential ‘tsunami’ of late-stage cancer cases, and it appears we are starting to see the impacts of this issue. A lack of access to primary care has meant that many people are getting diagnosed later and long wait lists are putting patients through increased anxiety and worry.

B.C. used to have one of the best cancer care systems in the entire world. Now we are not even keeping up with the rest of the country.

Currently, only 75 per cent of B.C.’s cancer patients are receiving radiation therapy within the Canadian benchmark of 28 days. This is a continued decline from 93 per cent in 2018, and a far cry from the national average of 97 per cent.

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The situation is so dire that in the spring, the NDP announced it would start sending patients from B.C. to Bellingham, Washington for treatment because we simply cannot keep up with the need in the province.

While this program was meant as a backup plan to solve a problem they let grow out of control, David Eby’s NDP government is now struggling to even keep up with this stopgap measure.

Just last week, our BC United Caucus obtained government documents that show B.C. is managing to send only one-quarter of the promised patients to the U.S. for treatment.

How are the NDP not able to get even their backup plan right?

Their failures in this regard have recently transitioned from a provincial problem to an international embarrassment, as British media outlet The Daily Mail published a story highlighting a B.C. woman who was forced to seek out her own treatment in the United States. Allison Ducluzeau from Victoria began looking for other healthcare options after doctors in B.C. told her she couldn’t get the needed treatment for her stomach cancer in the province, suggesting she start considering medically assisted suicide as an option for the future.

After a few weeks of research, she was able to find a doctor in the U.S. who would provide her with life-saving treatment — and get the procedure — before she even got an appointment with an oncologist through BC Cancer.

Surely, we can all see that the system has failed when doctors are directing people to medically assisted suicide because there is no hope of getting them treatment in time. It’s shameful that we have ended up with this reality in our province.

Here in Kamloops, we’ve seen firsthand that this NDP government simply cannot deliver on its promises when it comes to cancer care. During the most recent provincial election, former NDP premier John Horgan promised a full-fledged cancer centre would be built, open and full of patients before the next provincial election in 2024. But here we are, less than a year away from that date, and all we have is an empty parking lot. Cancer patients from Kamloops and the surrounding area still have to make the trek multiple times a week to Kelowna for radiation treatment — with no help from the NDP to cover their travel costs, another broken NDP promise.

The Kamloops cancer centre fiasco is about as clear an example as you can get of the fact that while the government is good at making flashy announcements, time and time again, the NDP over-promise and under-deliver, and it’s everyday people who end up paying the price for their lack of results.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.