Public wait times could be costing lives

“…For the vast majority, they just need ‘the barn door stuff’, and that’s what we’re missing out on.” – Professor Frank Frizelle (pictured), a Bowel Cancer NZ medical advisor, spoke to Radio NZ about the highly problematic wait list for colonoscopies and surgery in the public system that is costing lives.

A Waikato stage 3 bowel cancer patient is $20,000 out of pocket after paying to go privately for her diagnosis and treatment. She fears for others who are “not so lucky” as she had help from her family and used savings for a house deposit.

The 38-year-old mother-of-two was diagnosed in October after paying $2000 for a private colonoscopy to beat the five-to-six-month delay in the public system.

A 4 week wait in the public system for an MRI prompted her to pay, and she was then told it was going to be up to eight weeks before she could begin chemotherapy. She decided to see a private oncologist who was very honest about the risk of waiting for publicly funded treatment.

“I said to him: ‘In your opinion, is there a risk in waiting? Because it’s expensive’. And he was really frank and said: ‘Yes, because every day your cancer cells are multiplying’.

“I felt so disappointed in this system that I had grown up believing in. You know: ‘We’re so lucky here, it’s free healthcare, we all pay taxes towards this brilliant system, which means that we’ll always be taken care of if we get sick’. But I felt this just wasn’t the case,” says the young mum.

She said the medical staff have been “amazing” when she had “actually got the care” the issue is the delay in getting the treatment or even diagnosis in the first place.

Professor Frank Frizelle highlights the people in New Zealand who have private health insurance or financial resources have an advantage, even within the public healthcare system. “Without doubt, those who are the better educated, those who are able to engage in systems are inevitably better served than those who sit back and let things happen, which is a terrible thing to happen.”

The government has committed to providing faster cancer treatments as one of their Five National Health Targets. Te Whatu Ora said it was “working toward treating patients with a high suspicion of cancer within 62 days of referral, and within 31 days of a decision to treat them.”

We urgently need to see change nationwide as there are a staggering number of patients having to rely on family, friends and GiveaLittle pages to pay for all areas of cancer diagnosis and treatment.