HALIFAX - Patients who need cancer radiation therapy in Nova Scotia will get treatment within eight weeks by 2010 under a deal signed Monday between the provincial and federal governments.
If there is a longer delay, a patient will be given other options, including transportation to other provinces and possibly even the United States.
"(When). . . the oncologist has given you the diagnosis and says this is the course of treatment, that's when the clock starts,'' said Nova Scotia Health Minister Chris d'Entremont.
D'Entremont joined federal Health Minister Tony Clement in announcing that Nova Scotia will draw $24.2 million from a $612-million trust fund -- announced in last week's federal budget -- to establish the cancer treatment wait-time guarantee.
Quebec introduced Canada's first wait-time guarantees last year for knee and hip replacements and cataract treatments.
The funding post-budget announcement in Halifax was expected to be the first in a series regarding the national program in which provinces will choose one area of treatment to be covered.
"We're going to be learning from one another,'' Clement said.
"So if Nova Scotia's taking the lead in radiation oncology, other provinces might be looking at a primary-care guarantee in certain areas and other provinces are looking at other types of specialist procedures.''
Critics say the piecemeal approach to wait-times guarantees seems at odds with the 2006 Tory election platform.
During last year's election campaign, the Conservatives pledged to ensure Canadians receive treatment "within clinically acceptable waiting times'' in five areas: cancer, heart, diagnostic imaging, joint replacements and sight restoration.
Meanwhile, Nova Scotia will also be eligible for up to $48 million over the next three years to implement other health-care wait-time initiatives.
The figure includes a $10-million bonus Ottawa offered each province for signing onto the wait-times program.
D'Entremont said to meet the wait-times target on radiation treatment, Nova Scotia will have to increase its capacity to deal with a system that sees 23 new cancer patients diagnosed each day.
Nova Scotia currently has about 28,000 cancer patients in the system. D'Entremont said about 70 per cent of those needing radiation get treatment within four weeks.
"Today, if we said there was a guarantee, we could not meet it,'' he said.
"To expand that to 80, 90, 100 per cent requires a fair investment . . . New linear accelerators, new information systems, new treatment mechanisms.''
And that's where the major challenge is, said Theresa Marie Underhill, the chief operating officer for Cancer Care Nova Scotia, the body responsible for co-ordinating cancer services in the province.
"We're financially quite up against it as a province,'' she said.
Underhill said Nova Scotia has to find millions of dollars just to replace and add to its complement of seven radiation therapy machines at its two main cancer treatment centres in Halifax and Sydney.
"They have a useful life of between 10 to 12 years . . . but Cape Breton cancer centre, that's 10 years old now,'' Underhill said.
While NDP health critic Dave Wilson welcomed Ottawa's initiative, he said he was concerned about the three-year lag time on the treatment guarantee, and the plan to possibly move patients to the U.S. for treatment.
"I'm just wondering if this is the opening of the flood gates to this province, potentially delivering health care in the private sector,'' said Wilson.
Nova Scotia also launched two wait-time pilot projects, which will be funded from a separate $30-million federal fund.
One project aims to improve diagnostic imaging for orthopedic patients, while the second will develop a centralized waiting list for people in need of hip and knee replacements.
Clement said Nova Scotia will also be eligible to benefit from a $400-million Health Canada fund that aims to develop electronic health records.
