REGINA - The Saskatchewan government is turning to an out of province solution to address lengthy wait lists for breast cancer diagnostic care.
On Wednesday, Minister of Health Everett Hindley announced eligible patients on an urgent wait list for breast cancer diagnosis will be able to receive procedures at a private medical facility in Calgary, out of the same facility that the province has currently contracted to do their additional hip and knee surgeries.
Hindley said the contract with the Calgary facility was amended so that clinic can provide 1,000 procedures through the end of March, 2025.
The cost works out to roughly $2,000 per patient or $2 million overall, and will be paid for by provincial funding already in place from their surgical initiative. The private clinic would be offering the cancer diagnostics, including breast mammography and biopsies, in addition to the diagnostic care currently being provided in Saskatchewan to the highest-risk patients.
Hindley acknowledged the situation was brought on by a shortage of staff and radiologists in Saskatchewan, in particular in Regina. He had spoken to those advocating on the issue and made clear an urgent fix was required.
“Cancer can’t wait,” said Hindley to reporters. “It requires diagnosis and treatment on a very urgent basis. And so that was one of the options presented to us.”
Hindley pointed to what he had described as “unacceptable wait times” seen in this province, and a provincial wait list of 350.
“Ideally the wait list should be roughly three weeks, and we are seeing upwards of 10 weeks if not more for some women,” said Hindley.
The hope, he said, was to cut down on the wait list and be on top of additional cases as they come in. The medium and longer-term solution, Hindley said, is to find specialized radiologists to offer the service.
According to the province, the process will start immediately with out-of-province care to be coordinated by the Regina Breast Assessment Centre. Hindley expects that organization to start contacting the urgent and long waiting patients as quickly as tomorrow, and said he hopes there will be a “fairly immediate impact” to the waiting list.
An issue that constantly is raised whenever Saskatchewan contracts out of province for health services is the travel costs for patients. In this case, Saskatchewan will pick up some of that tab.
They will pay reimbursement to $1500 for patients as well as one other individual to support them as they travel out of province for this procedure. This is something not typically done for other out of province procedures like hip and knee replacements, but when it comes to cancer care, “time is really of the essence,” said Hindley. “We don’t want travel costs to be a barrier of that treatment.”
In a statement, Opposition Leader Carla Beck slammed the Sask. Party announcement and blamed the government for its failure to expand mammograms in Saskatchewan.
“This government should be doing everything it can to help women at risk of breast cancer, but I’m shocked it’s come to this,” said Beck in a news release.
“Today’s announcement is proof of Scott Moe’s failures. This is what 16 years of Sask. Party mismanagement gets you. I don’t think it’s ever been harder to get a mammogram in Saskatchewan before. It’s absurd. The longer Scott Moe is in power, the further women will have to travel for basic breast cancer screenings.”
