Have your say on how to improve cancer care
TORONTO — Canadians are being asked to take half an hour to have their say on how cancer care can be improved.
The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer’s online campaign ,30 Minutes That Matter, is aimed at having the public share their experiences about cancer to shape how prevention, screening and care are delivered over the next decade.
Priorities identified by respondents in the online “choicebook” will help to form the basis for an updated version of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, the national plan to tackle all aspects of cancer care that was initiated 12 years ago.
“This particular part of it — the choicebook — is to engage the general public in an online forum where people are able to log on and, over the course of no more than 30 minutes, go through a series of questions that is trying to elicit from them what sorts of priorities they have for the cancer system,” said Dr. Craig Earle, CPAC’s vicepresident of cancer control.
For example, respondents are asked if they had $100, where would they most like to see the money spent, said Earle, an oncologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. “What would be your priority? Would it be prevention of cancer or the latest new drug, for example?
“This is an opportunity for anybody to come on and make their voices heard.”
CPAC is working with provincial cancer agencies, cancer organizations and charities, patients, caregivers, the private sector and Indigenous communities to identify and address the most pressing challenges faced by those affected by cancer.
Recommendations will be combined with those from consultations with stakeholder groups and presented to the federal health minister to help shape Canada’s renewed cancer strategy, which is expected in the spring.
“There is a rigorous analytic plan to go through the reams of data to identify themes and to try to prioritize them,” Earle said. “What were the most common themes that came up over and over again?” he said. “What are the things that we think are actually achievable, that we can try to move cancer care forward and cancer control forward?”
Doreen Edward, a patient adviser for the campaign, said she is excited to be part of the national dialogue to help set priorities for the country’s cancer strategy. As a survivor — in 1994, she was treated for colon cancer, then for aggressive ovarian cancer in 2010 — Edward said it’s critical that those who have lived with malignancies, and their families and friends, choose to make their experiences known, so their recommendations and insights can help lead to change.
One of her major worries is the sustainability of the health-care system in dealing with what is predicted to be a tsunami of new cancer cases as the population ages. Experts say one in two Canadians is expected to develop cancer.
“How do we reduce those costs?” Edward said from Montreal, where she runs a charity, Voboc, that supports adolescent and young-adult cancer patients. “I don’t know how we get there, but certainly input on prevention and reducing the cost is critical. Then, how do we improve that patient experience for those who do get cancer?”
Edward is also concerned about a lack of equitable access to cancer care for some Canadians — a challenge Earle also says needs to be addressed.
“We do have universal health care in Canada, but certainly not everyone in our country benefits from the excellent care we have to the same degree,” Earle said. “That includes First Nations, Inuit and Métis, low-income Canadians, immigrants, the LGBT community.
“There are lots of communities, I think, that need our special attention to make sure that they’re benefiting to the maximum extent possible from our health-care system.”
Earle hopes there will be a focus on improved access to care for such groups, as well as those in rural Canada, in the revamped strategy.
People living with cancer, those caring for someone with cancer, and anyone who knows someone with cancer are encouraged to participate in 30 Minutes That Matter by visiting cancerstrategy.ca between now and mid-December.