Yukon residents will benefit from B.C.'s plan to send cancer patients to U.S.

Yukon residents who receive medical care in B.C. could benefit from the newly announced provincial plan to send cancer patients to the U.S., a Provincial Health Services Authority spokesperson told CTVNews.ca.

Last week, the B.C. government disclosed its new plans to send up to 50 B.C. residents per week to clinics in Bellingham, Wash., for radiation treatment. Starting on May 29, this initiative is expected to last for two years.

“If a patient from the Yukon is referred to BC Cancer, they would be screened for eligibility for the out-of-country radiation therapy program by their physician,” the PHSA spokesperson wrote in an email Tuesday.

Many northern residents have to travel to B.C. or Alberta for medical treatments due to limited resources in the territory.

According to the territory’s Department of Health and Social Services’ survey, 3,961 Yukoners travelled under the territory’s medical travel program between April 1, 2018, and March 31, 2019. This includes Yukoners who travelled for their own medical needs, as well as those who travelled to accompany a child or dependant or as an approved travel escort.

In the Yukon, approximately 170 people are diagnosed with cancer each year, said the PHSA spokesperson, although not all require radiation therapy services through BC Cancer.

Karin Stephens, a member of the Paddlers Abreast, a group of breast cancer survivors from northern B.C. and Yukon, says the hardest part of the process is the current long wait times for treatment.

While her own experience in 2007 involved a relatively short wait between chemo and radiation, Stephens acknowledged others face far more challenging circumstances.

“For some, it’s been quick, and, of course, COVID made the wait deadly in more ways than one,” she told CTVNews.ca over an instant messaging platform on Tuesday.

Highlighting the urgency of the issue, Stephens shared the story of her late neighbour who endured weeks of waiting for an x-ray in Yukon, followed by another month of waiting for radiation treatment in B.C.

NEW TEST COULD REDUCE TRAVEL NEEDS

There is a glimpse of hope for reducing the need for medical travel for Yukoners.

Sean Secord, co-chair for Ride for Dad Yukon, says that access to health care is more difficult for people living in the North as most specialists are thousands of kilometres away.

“The number of people that have to go out [of the Yukon] for urology needs or prostate cancer needs is kind of an abyss,” he told CTVNews.ca over the phone last Thursday.

Secord shared the organization has raised more than one million dollars for cancer research. This funding is being used to facilitate the introduction of ClarityDx by Nanostics, a test to detect aggressive cancer in men through blood tests.

“Perhaps (we can) send blood instead of patients out of territory,” he says, hoping the test can provide a more accurate prostate cancer diagnosis for Yukon men.

Secord says the new test will be available for private purchase sometime this year.