“We know what it’s like for women to wait. We get calls. They ask, ‘What do we do?’,” says a Breast Cancer Action Quebec adviser. “But the more important thing is, what the heck is going on?”
The number of breast cancer patients in Quebec waiting past the medically acceptable delay for surgery is the highest it’s ever been, and the increase is the sharpest for any type of cancer, according to newly released figures by the Health Ministry.
In total, 923 people were on the wait list for the life-saving surgery as of Sept. 21, up from 472 at the beginning of January 2020.
“We see the same dramatic increase. It’s never been this high,” Jennifer Beeman, research and advocacy adviser for Breast Cancer Action Quebec, told The Gazette.
“We know what it’s like for women to wait. We get calls. They ask, ‘What do we do?’ Absolutely. But the more important thing is, what the heck is going on? We would like to hear from the government.”
The Gazette sought an explanation from the Health Ministry on Monday. Although a ministry official acknowledged receipt of a reporter’s email, they were not available to comment by Tuesday afternoon.
The figures have been trending higher for months, raising questions about the government’s handling of surgical wait times for a cancer that was diagnosed in 8,154 individuals in Quebec in 2021, the most recent year for which the statistics are available.
The latest increase began on June 1, which is usually when nurses start going on vacation, raising the possibility that some hospitals may have found it difficult to schedule operating room or recovery time because of a shortage of staff. At the same time, Quebec is struggling to clear a backlog of surgeries left over from the COVID-19 pandemic, when hospitals purposely ramped down the number of operations to prevent outbreaks — a controversial policy known in French as délestage.
Nonetheless, a Gazette analysis of surgical wait times past 57 days found decreases for other types of cancer. For example, the number of Quebecers waiting at least two months for colorectal surgery declined to 27 on Sept. 21 from 31 on June 29. Wait times in the same category for operations for lung and thyroid cancers dipped, too.
In general, though, wait times for all types of surgery — not just for cancer and not only waits beyond acceptable delays — have been rising steadily in the past four years. At present, more than 162,000 Quebecers are languishing on wait lists for elective (or non-urgent) surgery, including nearly 11,000 who have been waiting for their operation for at least a year (although the latter figure is down from more than 22,000 two years ago, suggesting some progress).
As Quebec and other jurisdictions mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October, the province can point to strides in reducing the mortality rate for the disease. In 1984, the rate of breast cancer deaths was 26.37 per 100,000 population in the province; two decades later it dropped to 14.07 per 100,000 population, reflecting improvement in treatments, among other advances. Meanwhile, the five-year survival rate increased from 81.1 per cent in 1992 to 89.1 per cent by 2016.
However, the incidence of breast cancer has been rising, going from 73.13 cases per 100,000 population in 1984 to 87.45 cases per 100,000 population in 2021, the latest year available. And should wait times for breast cancer surgery continue to rise, the mortality rate could be affected.
