A Chatham woman forced to wait more than a month for a vital diagnostic cancer procedure is imploring the province to acknowledge how lack of funding is harming patients.
The woman, a Chatham senior who is battling lung cancer, spoke to the Voice in her home recently.
“I want people to know because they need to be very angry with what’s going on,” she said on the condition she not be identified. “I don’t want this to be just about me – it could be anyone’s issue.”
The woman was in the process of being scheduled for what’s known as a PET (positron emission tomography) scan – a diagnostic test that provides much needed critical information on cancer treatment options, when she was informed the only unit in this side of London was being shut down in a funding dispute with the province.
“I went to the hospital in Chatham on May 16, the day after I started coughing in a funny way,” she said. “They scheduled me for a CT scan right away and I was referred to a lung specialist in Windsor. Everyone in Chatham and Windsor was great and then on May 25 I was told the machine was down and I wouldn’t be able to have the test.”
As a survivor of cancer ten years ago, she said she knows how much attitude plays a role in health.
“I’m a fighter,” she said. “But when they tell you that you can’t even fight because they don’t know exactly what has to be done, it’s very hard. I believed the worst, that I was too far gone for help.”
The woman, who started chemotherapy this week, said she was told the PET scan would have given her doctors the information she needed within two days.
“I don’t think people understand how long a month is when you don’t know if you are going to live or not,” she said.
The unit, operated at a private diagnostic clinic in Windsor, was receiving $300,000 in annual operating funds, which is less than 20 per cent of the allocation given a similar unit in Sudbury.
After submitting various requests for funding without success, the unit closed in May. A private citizen in Windsor has since donated $100,000 to restore operations on a temporary basis.
Chatham-Kent-Essex MPP Rick Nicholls said the province has a double standard for health care.
“If you live in Sudbury you can get a PET scan, but in this area, with some of the highest cancer rates in Ontario, you’re out of luck,” he said.
The cancer patient said Nicholls intervention helped get her an appointment for a test in Mississauga in June.
“I’m grateful for Rick’s help but no one who has cancer should have to wait more than a month over something like this,” she said.
Shannon Sasseville, communications director with the Erie-St. Clair Local Health Integration Network, said although the LHIN doesn’t deal with private clinics, officials have been working to deal with the situation.
“Our first priority was to find an alternative site for the 60 or so people who needed the test,” she said. “To the best of my knowledge, we have taken care of that and we’re working to ensure that on a short-term basis, every patient is taken care of as quickly as possible. If someone is having issues, I would ask that they contact us immediately.”
On a longer-term basis, Sasseville said the LHIN is prepared to play a role should a local hospital request that a PET scan unit be placed there.
“It’s a discussion between a hospital and Cancer Care Ontario but to the extent that we would need to be involved, we’re certainly prepared to do what we can,” she said.
What a scary time for people. To have questions of your health constantly on your mind wondering what to prep for. And the Ontario government should be ashamed of letting the PET machine in Windsor sit idle for even one day. I wish no harm on anyone, but would any of our politicians have to wait and fight for lifesaving funding if their Name was on the list of patients needing testing or treatment. I think not. Why should hard working citizens have to fight the government for health care funding? The system is broken