Specialist shortage limits local cancer treatment

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This article was published 31/03/2023 (1315 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Certain types of pediatric cancer treatments will not be available at Brandon’s new Western Manitoba Cancer Centre due to a shortage of specialists, according to CancerCare Manitoba.

Instead, cancer patients in need of blood and bone marrow transplants as well as pediatric cancer treatment will start in Winnipeg and receive chemotherapy in Brandon, said Dr. Sri Navaratnam, president and CEO of CancerCare Manitoba.

“They are both very specialized care,” Navaratnam said, “The bone marrow transplant for adult patients is done by a team, and the same pediatric doctors who treat childhood cancer like leukemia, are also on that team — we don’t have the number to divide it into two centres.”

In Manitoba, there are 6,000 new cancer diagnoses a year, and that number is expected to reach 10,000 by 2035 because there will be more Manitobans in the age range where cancer is most commonly diagnosed — 50 years and older.

The new 9,400-square-foot cancer centre will have additional exam and procedure rooms and expanded spaces for oncology, hematology and a new medical linear accelerator, which is used in external beam radiation treatments, said Navaratnam.

“This expansion will accommodate patients’ needs for therapy and enhances cancer services by providing second radiation treatment, and much-needed clinical and treatment spaces,” she said at a press conference in Brandon on Wednesday alongside Premier Heather Stefanson and Health Minister Audrey Gordon.

They were in the Wheat City to observe the construction project and announce the opening of the Paul Albrechtsen Centre for Hope, which will be attached to the Western Manitoba Cancer Centre as a place of healing and hope for cancer patients and their families.

There is one oncologist working at the existing cancer centre in Brandon, but for the planned expansion, recruitment has already begun to find one more oncologist as well as a hematologist, who specializes in diseases of blood and bone marrow cells.

Prairie Mountain Health is already recruiting physicians on its website, listing 15 locations in the region that need a family doctor. The Brandon Regional Health Centre is also advertising for an emergency physician, cardiologist, urologist, orthopedic surgeon and anesthesiologist.

Prairie Mountain CEO Brian Schoonbaert said they have been successful in recruiting specialists to the hospital and they have secured more professionals to arrive within the year.

“Yes, there are shortages, but not everywhere. We are able to recruit for many of these specialties, so we’re quite confident that when the hospital’s expansion is ready in 2025 that we will be ready to offer the services that are planned for the space.”

Construction on the Western Manitoba Cancer Centre, which is located on the same grounds as the Brandon Regional Health Centre, began in January and is expected to be complete next year.

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

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