EDITORIAL: Focus on saving lives, not out-pointing rivals

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This article was published 19/10/2024 (457 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some hard-fought victories are worth celebrating.

And then there are some which ring hollow when you really look at exactly what you have won.

Such a victory came yesterday when Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told reporters at a hastily called news conference at the Manitoba Legislative Building that the province will lower the age for breast-cancer screening to 40 by December 2026.

A woman prepares to receive a mammogram. (Breast Cancer Society of Canada)

“We want more women in our province to hear those four important words: ‘You are cancer-free,” Asagwara said.

Ironically, while Asagwara was making this announcement, other MLAs were debating a Progressive Conservative private member’s bill — The Earlier Screening for Breast Cancer Act — that was introduced by PC Health Critic Kathleen Cook earlier this month. As the Winnipeg Free Press reported, the bill, which received second reading on Thursday, calls for the government to lower the age for breast-cancer screening self-referrals from 50 to 40.

Cook’s Bill 221 would have required the health minister to develop and implement a plan to lower the initial eligibility age for routine breast-cancer screening services without a referral from 50 years to 40 years by no later than … Dec. 31, 2026.

“The Canadian Cancer Society, Dense Breasts Canada, and Breast Screening Advocates Manitoba along with medical experts, advocates, and survivors are all calling for age 40,” Cook wrote on her Facebook page on Oct. 3. “And the deadline proposed in my bill is more than reasonable.”

The phrase “too cute by half” comes to mind in the way the NDP health minister decided to make this decision — a quickly held news conference that appears to steal back control of a weighty issue that could have given the Tories a little more public support.

However, Asagwara told media that the decision to lower the age to 40 had nothing to do with the PC bill and that it had been in the works “for many months.”

“We’ve previously already committed to lowering the age to 45 by the end of next year,” Asagwara said. “This is a really aggressive timeline to get to 40, but we know that this is an important timeline for women across this province.”

Thursday’s busy day of one-upmanship at the Manitoba legislature followed a previous announcement in September by the province to lower the breast cancer screening age from 50 to 45 by the end of 2025.

The province made the announcement after draft recommendations were published by the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care stating that “women aged 40 to 74 should be provided information about the benefits and harms of screening to make a screening decision that aligns with their values and preferences. If someone in this age range is aware of this information and wants to be screened, they should be offered mammography screening every two to three years.”

At the time, Asagwara said that the province’s ultimate aim was to expand eligibility for breast cancer screening by gradually lowering the age from 50 to 40, but the first step was to lower it to 45 by the end of next year. Until yesterday, the province had offered no timeline to lower the age to 40.

We continue to support efforts to expand breast cancer screening for Manitoba women, even if it means listening to the eye-rolling explanations of partisan politicians who attempt to make the issue political rather than work together to improve the lives of our citizens.

As we have noted on this page before, breast cancer is the most common cancer, and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among Canadian women. The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that one out of every eight Canadian women will develop the disease during their lifetime, and one in 36 will die from it.

But we are also forced to again point out the fact that, unless conditions improve considerably, our health system will not have the capacity to treat the additional cancer cases that will inevitably be detected because of the expanded testing. Just a few weeks ago, Asagwara pointed out that fact by admitting the health-care system barely has enough doctors, nurses, technologists, health-care aides and infrastructure to carry out all the mammograms required under the existing age criteria of 50 to 74.

Ramping up to that degree within two years seems like an impossible task, especially given the fact that Manitoba is not alone when it comes to a shortage of health-care professionals — other provinces are struggling, too.

The Tories can claim a minor political victory in pushing the province to adopt their timeline for breast cancer screening. And at least this certainly gives the NDP a point on the horizon to aim for — slightly more than two years to add enough capacity to meet the increased demand by people.

Yet we’re not convinced that this is so much a Tory victory — or even a solid policy decision by the NDP, depending on your preference — if the province is unable to meet the growing need. It amounts to peddling false hope.

And playing with people’s lives to score a few cheap political points won’t serve them well down the road.

-Brandon Sun