WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000

MRS ANDEE MCKEOWN AND MR GLYN ROBERTS

  583. I call Mrs Andee McKeown from the Ulster Cancer Foundation. You are going to speak first, Mr Roberts, are you?

  (Mr Roberts) By way of an introduction to Mrs McKeown. Mrs McKeown is a member of the Ulster Cancer Foundation patients' forum, very confident and indeed like many cancer patients the world over a very brave person facing up to the problem of cancer in her life. What she will be doing is very much looking at the issue of cancer research from her own particular personal experiences. She will probably outline what many cancer patients in this room will clearly identify with. I should like to hand you over now to Mrs McKeown.
  (Mrs McKeown) I am appearing before you today as a cancer patient and as a member of the Ulster Cancer Foundation's patients' forum. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 1993 and I have had two mastectomies and subsequent breast reconstruction. Unlike many of the others appearing before this Committee I am not an expert in oncology, epidemiology or any other cancer related medical disciplines. I am here primarily to represent the patients' point of view. I cannot therefore impress you with professional knowledge. However, what I want to do is impress upon you the absolute critical need not only for high quality preventive treatment and palliative cancer care services, but also for adequately funded well coordinated cancer research directed at ending the scourge of cancer at the earliest possible time. The word research has an academic ring to it. Part of my purpose in attending here today is to move the focus from the abstract to the personal, to put a human face on cancer. One in three people in this room will probably be given a cancer diagnosis at some stage in their life and one in four of you will die from that disease. Our cancer survival rates in Northern Ireland are amongst the lowest in Europe. They are on a par with countries such as Poland and Latvia. However, if you live in a modern European state such as Switzerland or France, you have a much better chance of a five-year survival post-cancer diagnosis. Moreover, in the United States, the survival rate for breast cancer is 30 per cent higher than it is in Northern Ireland. These are appalling statistics, but that is the reality in Northern Ireland. This in essence means that people are needlessly dying prematurely and they are suffering grievously because of the failure to invest adequately in cancer services including research in Northern Ireland. This is not an abstract problem. For me it is up close and personal and of course it could be the same for any of you in this room. My appearance today on behalf of the Ulster Cancer Foundation and the patients' forum is to bring to your attention and in turn the wider public the disturbing facts regarding underinvestment in this issue of cancer care and research, an issue which touches every family in the land. The crux of the matter here is one about relative priorities in terms of expenditure within the Government's overall spending programme. Cancer care and research are a priority but it does not appear to be reflected in the hierarchy of government spending priorities. In 1997 in the UK the amount of money spent on anti-cancer chemotherapy drugs in the UK per head was 95p. In America it was £7.76 per capita. In Germany it was £6.24. It is no wonder that our survival rates are so low. The Calman report has given us a blueprint for cancer services for the future in Northern Ireland. However, without the funding at an adequate level commensurate with need, how can the cancer centre of excellence ever work well. Moreover if we cannot adequately fund cancer treatment how can we ever fund the pursuit of a cure? I was recently given to understand that the investment by voluntary organisations in the UK in cancer research is significantly greater than that of government. That emphatically underscores the point made about the seriousness or otherwise with which government takes this issue. Mr Wood in his submission will speak of the excellent cancer research infrastructure in Northern Ireland, but he has stressed the necessity for government to provide the necessary resources to match the voluntary sector in its commitment to provide quality care. As a member of the patients' forum, I wholeheartedly endorse this. Cancer is a complex issue but it is not invincible and it can be defeated. To achieve this would take an utter and complete determination by all involved in the disease on an international or global basis. Cancer has no respect for frontiers. I recall the determination of the late President Kennedy to put a man on the moon within ten years like a pipe dream. That desire was fulfilled within the decade. Other extreme situations such as warfare have often been the catalyst for unforeseen breakthroughs in science and in technology. There is an undeclared war being waged against cancer and it has marshalled together people and groups like the voluntaries, politicians, doctors and researchers to try to find a cure. Maybe with the proper funding that day when cancer is no longer a threat could be sooner rather than later. Removing the threat of cancer must be pursued with a sense of conviction. The only question must be when, not whether. The question of when is dependent on an absolute determination to find a cure and the translation of that determination into willingness of governments to fund to the required level of resources and to give it the priority it so evidently needs.

  584. Thank you very much indeed. We do not have time for questions but may I just say that we welcome your evidence and that yesterday three of the Committee went to Ulster and they looked at cancer treatment there, so we are including Ulster, as we jolly well should, in our inquiry and thank you for coming today so soon after our visit yesterday.
  (Mrs McKeown) Thank you for your time.