Radiation Therapy Feasible...IF
By 250 News
Thursday, November 17, 2005 03:18 PM
Radiation therapy could eventually be part of a cancer care treatment plan offered through PGRH if a number of conditions are met first.
Northern Health has just received a report from the Radiation Therapy Review Steering Committee that outlines five conditions that would have to be addressed before radiation therapy could be offered in this part of the province:
1.Northern communities and professionals would have to support the idea of patients being referred to Prince George rather than Vancouver, Kelowna, or, in some cases, Edmonton.
2 There would have to be some major expansion and enhancment of of related cancer program elements at PGRH includingsurgery, palliative care, diagnostics, lab services to name a few.
3.There has to be a strategy in place for recruting and retaining the necessary experts in radiation, oncology, medical physicists and others
4.There would have to be additions made to the resources of many hospital departments at PGRH to ensure that in addition to radiation therapy, the full medical needs of patients referred to a cancer clinic can be met.
5. Full capital and operating funding from Northern Health, the BC Cancer Agency and the BC Government.
It is clear, the Board wants to move forward, but only if radiation therapy is part of an overall comprehensive cancer care program, that a stand alone radiation clinic is neither desireable, or feasible.
There have been concerns our region doesn't have the population base to support this kind of centre, and that would lead to an errosion of expertise the Vice President of Medicine for Northern Health, says the population factor is not a concern. Dr. David Butcher says " It is the volume and complexity of a variety of cases that will keep staff competant."
In the past, the north has had to fight for certain services because of concerns the population base wasn't large enough to support the initiative. Northern Health Chair, Jeff Burghardt says "I don't view that we will be at odds with the BC Cancer Agency or the Ministry of Health, I think that if we continue to work together, we will collectively decide we are moving ahead."
Is there a "date" for completion? No, only a concensus that today, the Board has laid the foundation and ordered the building blocks to work towards the development of a complete cancer care strategy that will include radiation therapy services in the north.
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For political (medical politics not partisan provincial politics) reasons there are three cancer diagnosis facilities in Northern BC. One at Dawson Creek, one at Prince Rupert and the largest at Prince George. For several years Prince George has been doing Prince Rupert's work because they can't find a pathologist. Terrace, I believe, has been sending their's to Vancouver because of the municipal and hospital rivalries between Prince Rupert, Terrace and Kitimat.
The fact is that there is only enough diagnostic histology work in Northern BC to keep one decently sized service going. Unfortunately, some lab procedures (immunohistochemistry for the technical minded) require a certain number of specimens and a consistent workload for the results to be reliable. The splitting of that workload among three or four hospitals has resulted in none of them being able to justify the cost of doing that work, nor to have the number of specimens that would generate sufficient need for the tests to be done on a regular basis. After all, what is the point in purchasing expensive lab materials if they are going to be thrown away because they have become outdated before they are even used a single time?
Having three services where there should be only one is a waste of taxpayers' money and the Regional Health Board has been grossly remiss in not addressing this issue in the past. They have certainly been aware of it "at the highest level", as the saying goes. I appreciate that amalgamating the services would impact on the lives of a few people, mostly technologists and a pathologist, but if Prince George is serious about wanting a Cancer Treatment facility then decisions like this need to be addressed.