The Case for a Cancer Clinic

Monday, November 07, 2005 03:58 AM

When you look at the entire picture of the Cancer Clinic for this region, it is easy to understand why Northern Health Chair Jeff Burghardt does not jump to his feet and wave a flag.

Burghardt is from Prince Rupert. It may be politically incorrect to say so, but to go from Prince Rupert or the Queen Charlotte Islands to Vancouver to seek cancer treatment is a much easier trip than a long long drive to reach Prince George.  In the case of the Queen Charlottes, add on a plane or boat trip just to get to the highway.

It may also be a tough sell to try and convince those people who live in the Peace River to come to Prince George when Edmonton, with its world renowned Cancer Center, is about the same number of driving hours away on a divided highway.

Similarly, trying to make a case for people from say Williams Lake, to drive north as opposed to south to Kelowna, is also a bit of a chore.

Those are the problems that are being faced by Charles Jago of UNBC and the others trying to muster up political support.

There have been a lot of comparisons between Thunder Bay and Prince George, and the Cancer Treatment Center in Thunder Bay is being pegged as the logical model for us to copy.

Trying to make a comparison between Thunder Bay and Prince George has its limits.

The population of Thunder Bay is 126,647, compared to our 77,000, Sauté St. Marie down the road from the Lake head has 83,519, and when you add in Dryden, International Falls and Ft. François you suddenly have a population larger than the Okanogan.

Match that up with the fact that in the Thunder Bay area you have a captive audience where in this region that is not the case.

There is a reasonable argument to be made as to why this city should be the location of the next Cancer clinic; it however will have to be made without using Thunder Bay as the back drop.

The bigger issue still remains, politically we may get a clinic, but will it be substandard?

We need a certain number of physicians to make the clinic work, and if they don’t have the number of patient’s needed to make that puzzle work, the service suffers and when it does, referrals suddenly are made to Vancouver and Edmonton for top notch care further weakening our local service.

We will need to convince the cities of Terrace, Prince Rupert, Ft. St. John and Dawson Creek that it is much easier for a family to accompany a cancer patient to this city as opposed to Vancouver and Edmonton.

That is the job faced by Dr. Charles Jago and Jeff Burghardt if we are to attract a cancer facility.

Trying to suggest that the Prince George area can go it alone just hasn’t washed with the Provincial authorities thus far.

I’m Meisner and that is one man’s opinion.

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Posted on Monday, November 07, 2005 03:58 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

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Comments

Posted by: fedup on November 7 2005 9:04 AM

Two members of my family in the last month have had to leave town for medical care the cost of the trip including hotels had to be covered by us. Maybe P.G might be cheaper to stay then Van or Edmon.We pay a hugh part of our taxes to medical and I just don't think we get what we pay for. This month will cost us at least $1000 dallors in travel cost and this can not be writen off at tax time.

Posted by: owl on November 7 2005 10:32 AM

Take it one step at a time ....

First step is to get all transportation costs and accommodation costs covered by MSP for the patient and at least one key family member, possibly more if a parent also has to take care of a child or even a senior ... that will begin the recognition of the inequity of our health system and go part way to deal with it. It will give us a truer cost comparison of diagnosing and treating here versus there.

The second aspect of creating a clinic here, which I understand completely, is this notion that a small remote clinic will not provide the treatment that a large clinic will, even to the point that it is better to get no treatment at all.

Has anyone ever thought of applying that thinking to every other service provided in small communities? How about our medical program at UNBC? Will we be graduating inferior doctors because we cannot attract world class doctors to teach in the programme? Or will the students have insufficient clinical experience because the hospital does not have sufficient case variation due to volume and some cases being immediately sent to Vancouver or elsewhere so never experiencing certain medical conditions.

We cannot afford to think that way and give up before even looking to see how true some of that is and, if it is, how the problem may be solved. That is giving up far too early even though some of our intuitions and experiences may lead us to think that way.

Where in the world do we have similar situations where the problem has been tackled successfully so that health care is more equitably provided? Or does one only find failure after failure?

Posted by: Chadermando on November 7 2005 7:44 PM

Great points Owl,

I think what you were saying would be akeen to taken a sample of say 100 peoples living expense costs for accompanining a family member to Vancouver, then dividing that total cost by the number of participants to come up with a cost allocation per person. Use this cost allocation as an additional cost to the actual medical cost for a total cost to use in comparision.

Then the question becomes does a total from this new cost pool cost more than the new overhead fixed cost of providing a remote location for the services. Factoring out the humananity part of the equation of course.

Posted by: Chadermando on November 7 2005 7:50 PM

I should add that interest rates are a big factor in deciding the annual fixed overhead costs that are at the center of this from a financial perspective for discounted cost analysis, and interest rates are going up, which will in turn skew against the viability of the investment unless it is locked in before rates go up.

Posted by: Chester on November 12 2005 7:58 AM

The Case for an alternative for a Cancer Clinic. Has anyone ever wondered about why Cancer is on the increase? Has anyone done any research on why some people get cancer and others don't? I would like to see more money raised for Cancer research being spent on cancer prevention.

It seems to me that we spend all of our time and resources on the study of the disease.

I am of the opinion that we should be studying what keeps people healthy and promote that philosophy at the same time. It's a whole lot less expensive to educate people with preventative tools rather than gamble on less than attractive odds of trying to beat cancer after they already have it.

If health was the goal, the study would be taking a totally different direction.

It seems obvious to me that the way we are going and the way we are approaching our health care is not working. More of the same will not change the results. Chester

Ps. Of course, this is not much of an immediate solution for those who find themselves needing cancer treatment.