Toronto, December 11, 2024 –
Dear First Ministers of the provinces and territories of Canada:
When you meet in Ontario on December 15th and 16th, Canadians living with cancer and their families will be watching the actions you take to address glaring gaps in our cancer system. They are counting on you to collaborate on better and faster access to cancer care and treatments.
Across this country, unacceptable wait times plague every step of the cancer journey. A four-week treatment delay increases mortality risk, yet Canadians endure the longest wait times among 11 high-income nations, with 30% waiting over two months just to see a specialist.
Canada also currently lags behind in providing timely access to life-saving medications. The time between Health Canada approval for medications and their listing on public provincial formularies averaged 736 days (25 months) in 2022, double the average time reported in comparable Organization for Economic Development (OECD) countries. This is not just a statistic; it represents people living with cancer waiting years to access the medications they need for potentially life-saving treatment.
Desiree, a resident of Ontario, experienced agonizing wait times and delays and multiple trips to the ER, and passed away just two days before her 35th birthday after receiving a late-stage cancer diagnosis. Her mother, Rosan Butt, has been fighting relentlessly to share her daughter Desiree’s story and is calling for urgent action to fix a cancer care system that failed their family.
In addition to the lengthy wait times to access care and treatments, people in Canada living with cancer are faced with the devastating choice of putting food on the table or taking on significant debt as they struggle to afford the out-of-pocket costs that come with a cancer diagnosis.
A recent report released by the Canadian Cancer Society revealed the out-of-pocket cost Canadians and their families grappling with a cancer diagnosis face is a staggering $33,000 in their lifetime. Most of these out-of-pocket costs include costs for medications, travel and accommodation for treatments, and loss of employment earnings. In Ontario, patients pay thousands out-of-pocket each month for take-home cancer medications – medications publicly covered in almost every other Canadian jurisdiction.
Garry Cowdry, a 67-year-old resident of Petawawa, Ontario, fought for months to receive his prostate cancer diagnosis. After nearly half a year after receiving his diagnosis, he was able to get the surgery he had been waiting for. He believes the prolonged delays significantly contributed to the aggressive growth of his cancer, necessitating more extensive surgery, including the removal of part of his bladder and lymph nodes.
His treatment also required six hours of travel each way between appointments, and the accumulated costs of travel, accommodation, and parking added a significant financial burden.
Cancer Action Now is calling on Canada’s Premiers to make cancer a political priority so that people in Canada living with cancer are no longer Dying to be a Priority.
We call on you to:
- Drastically reduce wait times: Take urgent action to reduce lengthy wait times for access to care every step of the cancer journey, including screening, diagnosis and treatment.
- Ensure faster access to life-saving medications: Explore an expedited review and approval pathway for cancer treatments, so people living with cancer in Canada are not waiting years for life-saving medications.
- Alleviate the significant financial burden: Urgently address the financial burden of cancer on Canadians by addressing the out-of-pocket costs for medications and travel and accommodation.
Progress will be demonstrated when we see more Canadians diagnosed with early-stage cancer, fewer diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and those living with cancer not just surviving but thriving. This will mean our cancer care system is truly responsive to patient needs and Canadians living with cancer have better opportunity for positive outcomes and cancer survivorship
Sincerely,
Cancer Action Now
About the Cancer Action Now Alliance
Cancer Action Now is a national alliance of patient organizations, professional associations, and life science companies who are witnessing the magnitude of the problem our cancer care systems and its patients are facing. We have come together to call on governments to address the issues in our cancer care systems so that Canadians with cancer have a chance to live longer, better lives than anywhere else in the world.