Thirty-eight cancer patients have booked travel to the United States for radiation therapy as part of a two-year initiative to reduce wait times.
Eligible breast and prostate cancer patients are being offered treatment at one of two clinics in Bellingham, Washington — PeaceHealth St. Joseph Cancer Centre and North Cascade Cancer Centre — with all expenses paid by the province at an estimated annual cost of up to $39 million. The program started May 29.
As of Tuesday, 87 patients had been referred by their oncologists through B.C. Cancer for radiation therapy treatment in Bellingham and 38 had booked travel to the city.
The Health Ministry was unable to provide the number of Island residents referred to the program or booked.
It’s estimated that 4,800 patients will use the Bellingham option over the next two years. During the same period, B.C. is expected to see approximately 1,000 new patients requiring radiation treatment.
As of Tuesday, nine patients in the program had received a U.S. radiation oncology consult and two had received radiation treatment.
B.C. Cancer has been working with oncologists from all six cancer centres in the province, including B.C. Cancer in Victoria, to inform them about the opportunity to receive radiation therapy treatment in Bellingham, the ministry said.
“Our goal is to ensure that all patients who are faced with a cancer diagnosis, and who need radiation therapy as part of their treatment, receive their treatment by clinical benchmark,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement, calling out of country travel for B.C. Cancer patients an “interim solution.”
The offer is available to patients requiring shorter treatment courses, typically about five days.
The program’s support team is working with referred patients to confirm they want to travel for their treatment, have a passport and can take the time off.
Once travel is approved, patient medical records are sent to the teams in Bellingham to plan treatment.
“As expected, not all referrals move forward to treatment, for multiple reasons,” said Dix.
The initiative is focusing first on breast cancer and prostate cancer patients, who are the largest patient populations receiving radiation therapy, and wait the longest for treatment. Other patient groups will be reviewed after the initial group is addressed, the ministry says.
The cost of delivering the treatment in B.C. is about $3,854, but the price in the U.S. is almost triple that at $12,277, according to the ministry.
Travel costs are based on a patient and a caregiver staying in Bellingham for five days, with half the patients using ground transportation and half using air transportation, the ministry says.
Each year in B.C. there are about 30,000 cancer diagnoses, about half of which require radiation therapy.
In 2022-2023, 82.9 per cent of radiation patients started treatment within four weeks, and 95 per cent within six weeks, the ministry has said, although leaked B.C. Cancer data suggests higher demand in recent months and worsening wait times.
The Health Ministry says of those who wait longer than six weeks, 50 per cent were treated within 7.5 weeks, and 75 per cent within 9.5 weeks.
Critics have cited inadequate compensation for workers and a shortage of equipment — such as MRIs, CT scanners, and linear accelerators, which deliver the radiation treatment — as the main challenges when it comes to timely radiation treatment.
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