For Immediate Release
June 12, 2002

The Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) is assuring British Columbians that there are no plans to cut cancer treatment drugs, contrary to earlier media reports this week.

"British Columbians are fortunate to benefit from a cancer drug budget that is well-managed by the BC Cancer Agency and that receives strong financial support from the provincial government," says Lynda Cranston, President and CEO of the PHSA. "In fact, the Cancer Agency has recently received $5.2 million in new funding and, with the support of the Ministry of Health Services and the PHSA, all of the cancer drug treatments requested and reviewed by expert oncologists are approved for this year."

Cranston made the remarks in responding to earlier media reports that resulted from a news release issued by the Health Employee's Union (HEU). HEU had requested, under the Freedom of Information Act, all background documents related to the PHSA redesign and budget management plan announced on April 23, 2002 and published selective information from those documents, without context, in their release published June 10, 2002.

"As part of our budgetting process, we asked all the agencies that are part of PHSA to do a very thorough, very vigorous exploration of all options that could be considered in responding to the financial challenges facing us," says Cranston. "From this broad range of options, what you might call a menu of ideas, we then identified those initiatives that we would seriously consider implementing. Those initiatives then formed the plan we announced and made available on our website on April 23. We're very concerned that the selective publication of information from background planning documents worried many British Columbians. I want to assure all British Columbians that if they're worried about getting appropriate cancer diagnosis, care or treatment, they needn't be. Thanks to the excellence of the BC Cancer Agency, British Columbia has the best cancer outcomes in all of the country, and we intend to ensure that is maintained."

In addition to raising concerns about availability of cancer drug therapies, earlier media coverage raised concerns related to a number of other PHSA areas. The following information is provided to clarify those concerns.

There are no plans to cut chemotherapy and other cancer drug therapies this year. New evidence-based drug therapies and continued growth in the number of patients needing chemotherapy will require an increase in drug funding between now and 2005. Fortunately, additional funding has been provided for the 2002/2003 fiscal year. All new cancer drug therapies requested and recommended by expert cancer physicians have been approved for this year. The PHSA redesign and budget management plan assumes that life support costs, such as those for cancer drug therapies and renal dialysis, will continue to be funded by the government.

No reductions in screening mammography services are planned for this year. In fact, the program is planning to deliver 230,000 mammograms this fiscal year, which is an increase of 5,000 over last year. The program continues to accept women between 40-49 years of age. It is possible in future years that the program may be unable to accommodate growth in demand as the population eligible to be screened increases and the program attempts to increase participation among women aged 50-74 years. Current waiting time for screening has not increased since last year. The Cancer Agency will continue to monitor wait lists for screening mammography over the next three years to determine if they are becoming problematic and will continue to explore opportunities to minimize the impact in 2003/2004 and 2004/2005.

The BC Cancer Agency is reducing the number of inpatient beds from 42 to 34. This will have minimal impact since many of these beds have not been staffed due to nursing vacancies. Previous surveys of inpatient bed utilization practice at the Vancouver Cancer Centre have established that the needs for oncology inpatient care can be met within the reduced bed number. Children's & Women's Health Centre of BC previously consolidated two pediatric nursing units, resulting in a reduction of seven beds. This consolidation improved use of the remaining beds and reduced the need for nurses to work overtime to staff them. The success of the Antepartum Home Care Program at BC Women's, which allows high-risk women in Vancouver to labour at home under supervision, and the introduction of services for women with high-risk pregnancies in Victoria and New Westminster, has permitted BC Women's to close four antepartum beds with no negative impact on patient care.

Roughly half of the pediatric dental surgeries performed at Children's do not need to be performed in hospital for medical reasons. Children who receive these services in the community are charged a facility fee to cover overhead costs. Children's Hospital is exploring charging a similar fee. Resulting revenue would help protect the services for those children who medically require them in hospital.

As a result of a demographic projection, admissions for acute pediatric patients are expected to fall by 3%. As a result of a natural decline in the birth rate, births at BC Women's are expected to drop by 7%. These reductions reflect populations trends and do not represent initiatives to reduce services.

Specialty nurses in short supply will avoid burnout, and costs will be held by not moving ahead with plans to increase operating room capacity and enhance other services at BC's Children's Hospital. As nursing staff becomes available, PHSA plans to redirect resources to these areas.

PHSA has budgeted $4.3 million for its corporate offices. This amount includes staff compensation, office rent and operating expenses. It does not include the corresponding reductions that will be made in corporate and administrative expenses in PHSA agencies as those functions are consolidated. There will be a net reduction in corporate and administrative expenses as reductions are made.

"The PHSA is committed to providing the specialized health services British Columbians throughout the province require and to getting the most patient care out of every health care dollar," says Cranston. "Certainly, we face significant financial challenges, but we are looking first to increasing revenue, secondly to implementing best practices and realizing efficiencies in administrative and support costs and, only as a last resort, looking at adjusting patient programs. Many of the initiatives identified in our plans, made public on April 23, require further evaluation before a decision can be made to implement them and those future decisions, when they're made, will be clearly communicated."

More information about the PHSA and its plans is available at its website located at www.phsa.ca.

For more information, contact Ellen Chesney at 604-660-5348.