Organizations offering support to cancer patients or conducting research into the disease are uniting their voices to demand that the Quebec government make cancer a “health priority.” They are calling for the implementation of an action plan to counter this disease which has led to the death of more than 22,000 Quebecers in 2022.
“There is an urgent need to act,” says Manon Pepin, President and CEO of the Cancer Research Society. Expected to have a plan as ambitious as a vehicle battery factory [électriques] “.
The Quebec Cancer Foundation, the Cancer Research Society, Leucan and Procure (organization fighting prostate cancer) held a press briefing Thursday morning in Montreal. They deplore the fact that Quebec does not have any precise data on the number of cases by type of cancer.
“We are unable to say, today, how many people there are who have lung cancer,” cites Manon Pepin as an example. This up-to-date data does not exist. We are not able to know how many people here in Quebec have had three cancers. » The most recent online data from the Quebec Cancer Registry dates from 2020.
Cancer is the leading cause of death in Quebec. In 2022, 58,400 Quebecers will have received a diagnosis, the organizations report. Despite everything, cancer remains “the great forgotten one,” according to Marco Décelles, general director of the Quebec Cancer Foundation. “There is an urgent need to present a costed cancer action plan, with measurable objectives and dedicated funds, as is already the case in other Canadian provinces and other countries,” he says.
This is not their first media outing on this subject. “Year after year, we repeat the same thing and there is no action,” laments Manon Pepin.
More money in research
The organizations are asking Quebec to invest more in research into cancer treatments. “There is little research and little funding for rare cancers, which means that the 15% of children who die from cancer is difficult to reduce,” says the general director of Leucan, Juli Meilleur.
Obtaining funding for cancer research is difficult, according to Manon Pepin. This component falls under the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy (MEIE) and not the Ministry of Health. “When we take steps with the ministry [MEIE] to finance a greater number of scholarships or to finance projects, we are unable to stick it to the Ministry of Health, she explains. There are people who are at the Ministry of the Economy, Innovation and Energy and who are there for health research, but given that health comes under another ministry, it is much more difficult. »
She believes that Quebec should take inspiration from France, which established a National Cancer Institute in 2004. Responsible for coordinating actions to combat this disease, this Institute reports to the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Research.
Further details will follow.