The B.C. government has announced it will discontinue a program that permitted patients to receive radiation therapy in the United States.
The program was launched in May 2023 to give eligible patients the option to receive “timely access to life-saving” radiation therapy at two clinics located in Bellingham, Washington. Now that provincial wait times have improved, the program is set to end, the province said in an April 7 press release.
Approximately 93 percent of patients in B.C. were waiting less than four weeks to begin radiation treatment by the end of February 2025, surpassing the national standard of 90 percent, the province said. This marks a 24 percent increase from spring 2023, when only 69 percent of patients were able to start treatment within the same timeframe.
Wait time improvements are a result of hiring more specialists, upgrading hospitals, and expanding treatments, Health Minister Josie Osborne said in the press release.
“Our priority has always been to ensure that cancer patients have timely access to life-saving treatment while we build and strengthen B.C.’s public health-care system for the long term,” Osborne said. “Thanks to the progress we’ve made over the past two years, we can now safely wind down this temporary program and focus on getting patients the care they need in B.C.”
To date, 1,107 patients have undergone radiation therapy in the United States, BC Cancer said. An average of 50 patients received U.S. treatments weekly during the program’s peak in the fall of 2023.
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BC Cancer has since reported a consistent decrease in the number of patients opting to seek treatment in the United States as in-province wait times for cancer treatment have improved. Based on present participation statistics, it is anticipated that slightly more than 100 patients would use it in the coming year, accounting for 0.6 percent of the estimated 16,900 patients expected to require radiation therapy in 2025-26.
These patients can now be accommodated in B.C. without the need to travel out of the country, the province said. Only nine patients will complete their treatment in the United States under the program before the contracts end.
The Ministry of Health previously projected the Bellingham program would incur an annual expense of $39 million, amounting to a total of $88 million over a two-year period.
B.C.’s 10-Year Cancer Action Plan aims to address the increasing demand for cancer care by expanding imaging and treatment access and improving cancer-screening programs. It will also add regional cancer centres in Burnaby, Kamloops, Nanaimo, and Surrey.
Currently, there are existing centres in Abbotsford, Kelowna, Prince George, Vancouver, and Victoria.
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