Toronto, January 21, 2025 –
Following tireless advocacy by our members and our collective efforts as an alliance, today, Ontario released its renewed cancer plan.
This plan recognizes the need to act on key areas such as, addressing barriers like out-of-pocket costs for medications, health system readiness to adopt new and innovative technologies and the value of early detection and timely diagnosis. However, there is more work to be done to develop tangible solutions that will help drive action.
In our advocacy this past Fall, in addition to the release of the plan, our alliance stressed the importance of:
- Targeted measures in Ontario’s Cancer Plan to reduce lengthy wait times for access to care and treatment across the care continuum.
- Commitment to yearly progress reports on the cancer plan.
- Follow through on the commitment made in Ontario’s 2022 Budget to improve access and publicly fund take-home cancer medications.
- An action plan to get cancer treatments to patients faster once they are approved, working in close collaboration with patient representatives.
As Cancer Care Ontario works to advance the goals outlined in the Cancer Plan released today, our alliance and our members look forward to collaborating and ensuring timely, equitable and innovative care is there for people in Ontario living with cancer now, and into the future.
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.