Editor's note: the following is an open letter to Dominic Giroux, president and CEO of Health Sciences North.
On the 10th anniversary of the most difficult month of my life, I am writing to appeal to your common sense and humanity and ask you to reverse the HSN budget decision about breast cancer abnormality followup.
I am one of thousands of women and men who have survived breast cancer because our hospital was able to respond to initial screening in an appropriately timely way.
In 2008, my routine mammogram showed an abnormality. Within a few days, I saw Dr. Brule at HSN. She ordered a biopsy at the hospital. The results came back quickly. I had early stage breast cancer. Thanks to the clinic at the hospital, I had the diagnosis within a few days. Surgery followed within a week.
Your expert advisers will have told you and those making budget decisions that the timeline for progress from early stage cancer to later stage is very variable. We do know that timely diagnosis and treatment increase survival rates.
Have those making the decisions any real idea what it is like to wait for the diagnosis and then for treatment? It is unacceptable for HSN to reduce services to the large percentage of people on budgetary grounds, when the alternative routes to diagnosis and treatment are not available in a timely way.
In Sudbury, even those with a family physician (to whom the initial results must be sent) are lucky to get an appointment within 10 days. Referral to an oncologist can take several more weeks. Then testing can begin.
I do understand well the need to manage HSN resources carefully. I urge you on behalf of those of us who have survived breast cancer as a result of the hospital-based clinic to find another source of savings.
Chris Nash
Sudbury