FOLLOWING recent revelations about the NDP government’s failure to provide adequate cancer care to British Columbians, B.C. has now made international headlines for our collapsing healthcare system, with stories highlighting patients being directed to medically assisted suicide (MAID) because they don’t have access to timely treatment.

“B.C. used to have one of the best cancer care systems in the world, but now we have among the worst wait times in Canada and a system so broken that we’ve become an international embarrassment,” said Shirley Bond, BC United Critic for Health. “The crisis is so dire that we are sending patients to other countries for treatment — and even then, some patients are choosing to fund their own care in the U.S. because they cannot get through BC Cancer fast enough. Surely, the system has failed when doctors are directing people to MAID because there is no hope of getting them treatment in time. We are talking about people’s lives here, their family’s future, and it is shameful that our system has deteriorated to this point on the NDP’s watch.”

Currently, only 75 percent of B.C.’s cancer patients are receiving radiation therapy within the Canadian benchmark of 28 days, a continued decline from 77 percent earlier this year, and a far cry from the national average of 97 percent.