Canadians are invited call on government to help make cancer care better

The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) releases findings from a national survey of 700 patients and caregivers and is asking people in Canada to be a Voice for Change to help improve cancer care. The survey, the sixth to be conducted by CCS during the pandemic, was fielded in November 2022 to understand how, and to what extent, people living with cancer and their caregivers are still being impacted by COVID-19. It revealed that, while we are seeing improvements in some aspects of cancer care and support since the peak of the pandemic, access to care remains inconsistent across the country and vital needs are not consistently being met.

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Among the key findings:

• About 1 in 4 respondents (25%) reported that they are still experiencing cancelled or postponed appointments.

• About one-third of patient respondents (33%) reported that they are not confident they will receive quality care in a timely fashion if they have a cancer-related emergency.

• Caregivers’ inability to accompany patients to cancer treatments or appointments remains the most widely reported disruption for both patients and caregivers, despite changes to many policies to allow 1 caregiver or support person to attend appointments again.

• The majority of patient and caregiver respondents reported that a consulta-