Southern District Health Board to outsource cancer treatment
12 May, 2021 09:36 PM
4 minutes to read
Melissa Vining. Photo / Laura Smith
Otago Daily Times
Mountainous cancer treatment waiting lists have defeated the Southern District Health Board, which yesterday called for outside help to treat up to 200 people.
Patient advocates, while welcoming the prospect of much-needed diagnosis and treatment finally being provided for people possibly facing a terminal illness, were scathing of the SDHB for having let its waiting lists get to this point. I am really pleased for the people who are on the waiting list, but I m also really sad because that will cost so much money that could have been used for lots of patients, Southland cancer campaigner Melissa Vining said.
The wait list to see a radiation oncologist has reached 157, the highest it has ever been and more than twice the board’s ideal wait list. The worst in the country. In the first quarter of this year fewer than half the patients referred as urgent because of high suspicion of cancer received their first treatment within 62 days, as they should have according to the Health Ministry. Access to scans is a large part of the problem and how hearts must sink with the report that a business case for a new, additional MRI scanner is expected – in December. New board chairman Pete Hodgson is emerging as a flinty hand at the tiller (to the extent that this could be said of any health board chair) and his reaction plain impatience: this was intolerable, and if it’s evident a second MRI machine is needed “then buy the thing’’.
Shameful and criminal : Long waiting lists for Otago cancer patients
3 May, 2021 05:58 PM
3 minutes to read
A person with a confirmed cancer diagnosis should be able to their first treatment within 31 days, which is not happening at the Southern District Health Board. Photo / Sarah Ivey, File
A person with a confirmed cancer diagnosis should be able to their first treatment within 31 days, which is not happening at the Southern District Health Board. Photo / Sarah Ivey, File
NZ Herald
By: Mike Houlahan
More people than ever in the South are waiting for cancer treatment, as waiting lists reach lengths never before experienced.
The committee reviewed a draft version of the board’s new radiation strategy, which is intended to address the delays. The wait list to see a radiation oncologist had jumped to 157 last week – against the board’s ideal wait list of 70 patients, representing a month’s work, Kelly said. “[This is] the highest it’s ever been. Our wait list is the worst in the country,” Kelly said, adding that at some point, staff needed to take leave. A report from the executive director of specialist services Patrick Ng showed that the board was struggling to meet faster cancer treatment targets set by the Ministry of Health.