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Gynocological Oncology Units for Sask Cancer Treatment Centres
Contributed by Darlene
Saturday, 10 January 2009
On Mon Jan 5th - Darlene Gray and three other members of OCATS met with the Ministry of Health and a director of the Dept of Health to recommend gynocological oncoloy (women's cancer) units for our cancer treatment centres, i.e. The Allen Blair Cancer Centre, The Saskatoon Cancer Centre.
On Monday Jan 5th, a group of
OCATS members met with a government Ministry to discuss our Recommendations
Paper (available to anyone upon request) for better, equal, effective cancer
treatment for Saskatchewan women. The issue discussed was why Saskatchewan women are being misdiagnosed, treated too late, and
not receiving appropriate care from a gynecologist oncologist.
Cathy Kyle, Donna Boyle, Darlene Gray and
Alvin Huber, representing OCATS attended the meeting. We explained the complications in
the delivery of appropriate services to female cancer patients needing the
expertise of an experienced and knowledgeable surgeon and gynecologist with
cancer training. We were advised that doctors are discussing a Gynecological Oncology
Program for Saskatchewan but to their knowledge this didn’t include a Gyn/Onc
Unit in the cancer treatment centers.
All points in our Recommendations could be
easily facilitated with such a Unit. This would give women’s cancers a higher profile leading to awareness
and acceptance within the medical community of women’s cancer needs. For example, a patient with late stage
ovarian cancer with an extremely high rate of recurrence (compared to other
cancers) and/or residual cancer requires follow up and/or on-going chemotherapy
treatment and the complications and side effects that will occur managed by a
specialist. On-going follow up with the surgeon specialist (gynecologist oncologist) who saw your cancer, inspected your ograns, knows your treatment regimine, can offer the most current expertise to deal with side effects, symptoms, recurrence is what women with gynecological cancers.
A compelling part in our Recommendations
was the request for Saskatchewan to deliver the most effective treatment
therapy for ovarian cancer, Intraperitoneal (IP) Chemotherapy. A catheter is
placed in the abdomen during surgery by a specialist and requires in-patient
care with nursing and follow up by a specialist. With Regina’s new Gynecologist Oncologist there is no reason
this service should be not available to Saskatchewan women who meet the
criteria. The Society of Gynecologic
Oncologists of Canada recommended IP chemotherapy to all cancer clinics chemo
back in 2006. While the Saskatchewan
Cancer Agency reportedly wants more studies on this, the rest of Canada moves
forward. Sask women have to travel out of province for this in-patient treatment for at least a month, especially trying when you are recovering from surgery, seriously ill and getting drugs and chemotherapy.
We also discussed the importance of
surgical tumor removal by an experienced expert who do proper debulking, a
risky but important factor of survival outcomes. Improved awareness among the medical community about this is
needed urgently in Saskatchewan. Once
again, a Gyn/Onc Unit would facilitate such a profile regarding specialization. And we now have the expert in Saskatchewan.
Examples of such specialists units at the Allen Blair/Pasqua Hospital are the Pediatrics Cancer Unit and the Breast Assessment Center, they cater to the special needs of those groups.
While gynecological cancers (i.e. ovarian, cervical, endometrial) are not as common as breast cancer, they are not rare! Ask your friends and colleagues. According to Health Canada, www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/pubs/women-femmes/cancer-eng.php: in 1998, an estimated 1,400 new cases of cervical
cancer were diagnosed in Canada. and there were approximately 400 deaths from cervical cancer. Ovarian
cancer was the sixth highest among new cancer cases diagnosed and fifth
in number of deaths due to cancer in Canadian women in 1998: there were
an estimated 2,500 new cases of ovarian cancer diagnosed and 1,400
deaths. Ovarian cancer will strike 1-2% of women in their lifetime.
Our recommendations weren't immediately endorsed, but we felt that our experiences and reasons to advocate for a gynecological oncology were heard. We were provided information on how
the current delivery system doesn’t provide for this type of Unit but had no
major objections to the principles we presented. In fact, the only reason provided against our recommendations was that Saskatchewan doesn’t
do it this way.
MOST IMPORTANTLY, OUR RECOMMENDATIONS WILL SAVE LIVES!!!
FOR MORE INFO OR A COPY OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS for for SUPPORT for a PATIENT WITH GYNECOLOGICAL CANCER, PLEASE CONTACT OCATS, DARLENE GRAY at 775-1848 or
OCATS
Ovarian Cancer Awareness & Treatment in Saskatchewan
An Action & Support Group for People Affected by Gynecological Cancers
Comments
ocats meeting Written by Darlene on 2009-01-28 14:07:00You are welcome to attend the upcoming OCATS meeting at the Chimney House Restaurant, 2710 Montague St, Private Room tuesday, February 2nd, 5:00-5:30 p.m. Start
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