A health care story from Canada

The family of a 57-year-old Meath Park woman says it will take at least three months before their mother gets to see a Saskatchewan oncologist who can tell her if her cancer is treatable or fatal.And while Health Minister Len Taylor says three months is too long to wait, he offered little Wednesday to indicate wait times to see cancer specialists in this province will soon be getting shorter.

Emily Morley has already waited a month to see an oncologist since receiving her biopsy results that identified her secondary cancer, but were inconclusive in determining the primary source. Until that primary source is identified, her treatment cannot begin.

And even though the cancer is now in Morley’s lungs, liver, pancreas and spine, the Saskatoon Cancer Clinic has advised her it will still take at least three months to see an oncologist.

“As of this point, she doesn’t even know if this is terminal or not,” her son Chris Andersen told reporters at the legislature Wednesday.

What’s worse is that their mother wasn’t given any options by the quality-care co-ordinator in Saskatoon that would help them navigate the system and see an oncologist quicker, her son said.

“It’s like a big game of snakes and ladders,” Andersen said. “This isn’t just about Mom. It’s about all people (with cancer).”

Chris, his sister Karen Andersen and Emily’s husband Warren Morley travelled to the legislature in the hopes of finding answers to why it’s taking so long for their mother to see a cancer specialist.

In raising her case in Wednesday’s question period, Saskatchewan Party health critic Don McMorris asked what the government was doing to hire more oncologists.

Health Minister Len Taylor said an oncologist has been recruited in Saskatoon to start in the fall, but acknowledged that there are three oncologist vacancies in the province and recruitment remains a problem.