The Southern Cancer Society says patients in the region face unreasonable delays to be diagnosed with cancer or treated.
Three Christchurch oncologists last night spoke to 1News about the impacts increased demand are having on their service.
While the Government’s target for faster cancer treatment shows more patients are getting seen sooner – of the four regions, the South Island has had the longest wait times for the last six months.
The Southern Cancer Society’s Craig Watson says the service was increasingly being called on to help patients navigate the health system.
“They’ve been got a letter in the mail that says your appointment is say 16 weeks away or your CT scan is over a year away, and that obviously is really distressing when you’ve got a diagnosis or a possible diagnosis of cancer,” Watson said.
The case of one patient with bladder cancer stuck with him. “She got a letter on the mail from Health NZ saying there’s a 55 week wait for her CT scan.”
Health New Zealand’s Dr Richard Sullivan says that patient’s situation “feels very unusual to me, if I was honest, because we do prioritise all our patients based on clinical need”.
He says overall the South Island’s data for how fast cancer patients are being treated was rising. “I just think that when we look at the figures, that tells us that the Southern space is doing reasonable”.
But he acknowledges there’s still work to do, pointing to a recent boost in diagnostic scans. “Once they’re there, they get great care. So we just got to work harder at getting them in faster,” Dr Sullivan said.
One of the Government’s health targets was for cancer patients to be treated within 31 days of the decision to treat. The goal was for this to happen 90% of the time and nationally it was at 83.3% with the South Island at 83.7%.
But the oncologists 1News spoke to last night said the target didn’t reflect what was happening on the ground as it didn’t capture some cancer patients, such as those whose cancers have returned.
Christchurch oncologist Dean Harris said they could expect to be seeing even more patients in the future as the population increased.
“On the whole we’ve seen a consistent steady rise in demand. It’s not really been matched with our requests for support for what could be seen as a pretty obvious tsunami coming”.
A Christchurch woman, who didn’t want to be identified, said she was hopeful she’d dodged a bullet when she found out she had some abnormalities last year.
“I’m like, I don’t want to get cancer. Like, that’s the last thing you want.”
She went on medication and was referred for a mirena contraception device but waited seven months before she received it. She was told by a staff member when she enquired about the wait: “oh, sorry, we lost the paperwork. We lost the referral. We don’t have it.”
The woman was later given the updated she’d been dreading. “She said, oh, not so great news. It looks like you’ve got cancer.”
She is now waiting on an MRI. “The letter said there was a 14 week wait… so that’s a really long time to wait, especially if it’s like cancer.”
In a statement, Dr Sullivan said Health New Zealand’s communication with the patient could have been better but he was confident she received the appropriate care.
“We understand the wait time for her next MRI is longer than the patient, or we, would like, but if she requires an urgent scan she will be seen much sooner,” the statement said.
“We are sorry for a delay in this patient receiving a Mirena, however this would not have changed the outcome.”
This is the second in a two part story about cancer care in the South Island. If you have information about this issue please email jessica.roden@tvnz.co.nz
