“we’re seeing younger people with more advanced disease,” dr. gerald batist , director of the segal cancer centre at the jewish general hospital, told the montreal gazette.
batist’s stark forecast comes after a study by mcgill university researchers that was published in the international journal of cancer in april predicted that “cancer care disruptions during the covid-19 pandemic could lead to 21,247 (two per cent) more cancer deaths in canada in 2020 to 2030, assuming treatment capacity is recovered to 2019 pre-pandemic levels in 2021.”
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that study was completed last november, before the latest series of délestage (the french term for cutting back on clinical services) that occurred last winter to cope with the omicron-driven wave in the pandemic. thus, the cumulative impact of délestage on cancer care has grown worse since that study was published.
even if there are no more rounds of délestage — which is not a given, as the pandemic is still not over — the province lacks enough medical personnel to confront the cancer-care backlog.
“at our hospital, i don’t think we have a problem with surgical wait times (for cancer) ,” batist noted. “we have other problems. we have problems with radiology wait times because of a shortage of technicians. it’s a human resource problem. in some hospitals, it’s nurses or anesthesiologists or or technicians. it’s a worldwide human resource problem.
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according to a report by the canadian cancer society , about 84,600 canadians were expected to die from cancer in 2021. lung cancer was the leading cause of cancer deaths for both men and women last year. the second and third leading causes of cancer deaths for men were colorectal and prostate, respectively. for women, they were breast and then colorectal.
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