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Speaker 1: Palmerston North Hospital is cutting back on some of its

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Speaker 1: bowl cancer screening procedures, and Health New Zealand is unable

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Speaker 1: to say if this is happening in other regions around

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Speaker 1: New Zealand. At the moment, in Palmerston North there are

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Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty two patients who are on the

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Speaker 1: waiting list for a surveillance colonoscopy. These are patients with

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Speaker 1: a high risk of developing bow cancer because of their

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Speaker 1: medical history or a family history. Well, the hospital says

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Speaker 1: pretty much all of those patients probably won't be getting

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Speaker 1: a colonoscopy until May at the earliest. The hospital says

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Speaker 1: it doesn't have the capacity to screen them and it

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Speaker 1: has to focus on people who are either symptomatic or

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Speaker 1: are already on the National bow cancer screening list. The

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Speaker 1: Professor Frank Frazell is medical advisor at Bellcanser, New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: He's with me now, good evening, good ANNTE. Is this

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Speaker 1: How concerned are you to hear this?

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Speaker 2: I think, well, I am, I'm very concerned. These are

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Speaker 2: patients said increase risk of bow cancer. They've either had

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Speaker 2: a previous poop or they've got a BAM. The history

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Speaker 2: that's very strong for bow cancer, So they've been identified

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Speaker 2: as not being your average risk, but they have been

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Speaker 2: substantially increase in risk. And now the delays of six

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Speaker 2: months before they can pick up and carry on, so

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Speaker 2: that six months of those screening, which means they weren't

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Speaker 2: clear the more at the start, So many of these

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Speaker 2: people will wait a lot longer in order to get

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Speaker 2: service delivered to them that they have been expecting.

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Speaker 1: Is six months as a minimum, a significant period of

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Speaker 1: time when it comes to the development of bow cancer.

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Speaker 2: Would you like to wait six months to find out

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Speaker 2: that you had bow cancer?

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Speaker 1: Certainly not, and I think that's.

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Speaker 2: It's also most importantly the ability to remove pre malignant lesions,

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Speaker 2: pre cancer's lesions, which stops them going on to cancer.

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Speaker 2: And so just that delay of nine months, maybe a

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Speaker 2: year for some of these people will increase the number

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Speaker 2: of these people with which could have avoided the cancer

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Speaker 2: by having premial legions removed.

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Speaker 1: Will this result in people having cancer that otherwise would

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Speaker 1: have been detected? Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Yes? They would have had pre cancerous legions removed, And

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Speaker 2: now that we're delayed and they won't get it, they

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Speaker 2: won't get them removed until too late. Until they've got cancer.

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Speaker 2: So the whole that's the whole purpose of screening and

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Speaker 2: of the process, and it's a lot of work has

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Speaker 2: gone to determining that these people are at increased risk

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Speaker 2: and they've proven both by family history and by having

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Speaker 2: previous for previous cancers that they are at risk and

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Speaker 2: so they are a vulnerable group. And my understanding is

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Speaker 2: that the short staffed and Palmston North or Mid Central

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Speaker 2: Health is the sort of old region used to be

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Speaker 2: called and the unable to replace staff that have left,

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Speaker 2: and that's partly due to the infrastructure around appointment with

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Speaker 2: the Federal Aura House New Zealand is it's also called.

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Speaker 2: And this has been an issue for at least eighteen

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Speaker 2: months two years, trying to get people through the appointment

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Speaker 2: process and the lack of.

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Speaker 1: Appointment and now it's kind of it's come to a

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Speaker 1: head and here we are with a six month pause. Professor,

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Speaker 1: thank you for filling us in on that. Professor Frank

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Speaker 1: Fazel's balcans in New Zealand's Medical Advisor. For more from

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