Quebec plans to improve access to cancer testing and treatment

The Quebec Health Ministry’s 2024-2026 plan for dealing with cancer cases will focus on prevention, early detection and increased capacity to treat patients, with particular stress placed on improved access to testing and treatment.

The plan’s highlights, unveiled on Friday, include an effort to better support patients by acting early and “relying on (early) testing, offering every chance possible to those facing the illness,” provincial Health Minister Christian Dubé said in a statement.

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One government objective is to see 75 per cent of patients requiring oncological surgery treated within 28 days or less by March 31, 2026. In 2023, that proportion was 53.6 per cent.

Another objective calls for the rate of screening for colorectal cancer to reach 42 per cent by March 31, 2026, while also making such testing available in all regions of Quebec. The plan also wants to ensure that by the end of 2025, all regions testing for cervical cancer do so with an HPV test rather than Pap test.

Overall, the plan has 60 components, some of which concern the collection of and access to information to “optimize the production and dissemination of information pertinent to oncology.”

“Monitoring data in oncology is essential to decision making, but also to fuel research and analyze performance,” Dubé said.

In a statement issued after Dubé’s announcement, the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) said that while it welcomes the plan, it remains concerned over how long it will take to actually see the objectives become a reality.

“We support the orientations presented by the minister of health, Christian Dubé, in his cancer action plan, which is distinguished by a prevention- and screening-oriented approach,” said David Raynaud, senior manager of advocacy at CCS. “However, our organization expects concrete measures, such as announcing an organized colorectal cancer screening program, modernizing breast cancer screening and rapidly deploying HPV testing for cervical cancer screening.”

About 67,500 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in Quebec in 2023, according to the province’s cancer registry, an increase of 12,000 compared with 2015.

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