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Our Kids Need YOU Now!!
Election
time draws near - June 28th. Healthcare is one of the main
topics under discussion. It
is imperative that the next Parliament and federal government makes
cancer a priority and provides adequate funding to implement a national
strategy to fight cancer.
Waiting
times for isolation rooms for radioactive iodine treatment, CAT-scans,
and even appointments with specialists are all much too long. Too little
attention is paid to meeting the emotional and social needs of recovering
patients and their families, including our children.
Every
politician knows that one phone call represents 10 other voters concerned
with this issue. They take
each call seriously. Your
personal effort can make a difference. When everyone makes that effort,
we will resound throughout Canada as a unified national voice
that will influence the political system for positive change.
I
want to help, but how do I…?
find
out who is running in my area?
a
sample letter to the editor of your local newspaper?
write
a letter to my MP addressing these concerns?
question
a politician in an face-to-face dialogue?
*Links
courtesy of the Canadian Cancer Society’s website. If these links do not work, simply
go to www.cancer.ca and enter
“national strategy” in the search field. The 1st match should be
“Canada needs a national strategy to
fight cancer”.
What is this national
strategy?
The Canadian Strategy
for Cancer Control was launched in the late 1990s to ensure that the
healthcare system in Canada is prepared to meet this
demand. The Strategy has the potential to bring about the sustained,
coordinated, comprehensive and collaborative approach needed to meet the
challenge of our growing and aging population. To date, this national
strategy, which includes a component to deal with children’s
cancers, has not been implemented.
Read
the CCS’s Op-Ed article
published in the Globe and Mail recently.
Why is it needed?
- We
are losing ground: 10 years ago the lifetime
risk of being diagnosed with cancer was 33%. As of today, 40% of
Canadians will develop cancer during their lifetime and at least
half of those will die.
- It’s
getting worse: Experts project that the number of new cases of
cancer diagnosed each year in Canada will
increase by 60% over the next 20 years.
- Cancer
has huge economic costs: According to Health Canada, the total cost of
illness in 1998 in Canada was $159 billion.
Nine per cent of the total cost of illness - $14.2 billion
- was related to cancer.
- Canada is lagging in the area of prevention: Incidence rates for some
cancers are higher in Canada than Australia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and New Zealand.
In order to turn things around and
start to make up lost ground in the battle, Canada must make cancer
control a priority. A national strategy to fight cancer must be
implemented now.
Get
out there. We have to make the effort to make our voices heard.
It’s
election time - get involved.
Let’s do it for our kids.
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