Fudged cancer patient waiting times reports, says AMAQ

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMay 4 2010

The Australian Medical Association of Queensland (AMAQ) recently revealed that the state’s health authorities are keeping the truth about waiting time for cancer patients under wraps.

According to President Dr Mason Stevenson some patients with postponed radiation treatment dates have been kept out of the performance report registers for hospitals.

The organization reports that up to 50 per cent of cancer patients have been removed from the hospitals’ radiation therapy waiting list in the quarterly reports.

Alarmingly 4,000 cancer sufferers are losing out on radiation therapy in Queensland every year because of lack of resources. “We have been led astray by Queensland Health (QH) statisticians that have led us to believe that in fact we are providing a bigger and better radiotherapy service for Queenslanders and that is plainly not the truth… We are actually losing the battle,” Dr Stevenson said.

Queensland Health retaliated by claiming that their reports were accurate. QH spokeswoman Liz Kenny says that the patients who are excluded from the list are not receiving late treatment. “It's not a meaningful list in terms of looking at your lack of access to care,” she said. The patients who are being postponed are getting other treatments according to her. There are hundreds who have booked in advanced and the whole lists is out in the open with “nothing secret or mysterious” about it. “For example women who are diagnosed with early breast cancer who are having surgery and then who are having many months of chemotherapy and whom radiation therapy would follow after that treatment,” she said.

At present the report says that there has been a improvement in the waiting times and the time has been within the recommended four weeks.

However Dr Stevenson says all patients should be on the list in the performance reports. “So we actually know how many Queenslanders are on the waiting list to receive radio therapy,” he said.

Former Cancer Council spokesman Paul Turner also accused the health departments of fudging reports. He risked his job because he believes that “the scale of the distortion was breathtaking”.

Health Minister Paul Lucas said on Monday said in a statement, “You can't be put on a waiting list for radiation until you know the results of your surgery first, because if the surgery is successful then you are taking away from other people who might be on the waiting list.”

Dr. Stevenson condemned all arguments saying that this was costing lives. “Very few patients prefer to defer their lifesaving radio therapy for more than one month and there doesn't exist a strong enough argument to explain why up to 50 per cent of patients have lifesaving radio therapy deferred since October 2008,” Dr Stevenson said.