Aging population puts pressure on Northeast Cancer Centre

An agingpopulation is a huge challenge facing the Northeast Cancer Centre in Sudbury as it prepares for a big increase in patients over the next decade.

Wendy Peters is one of the faces behind the numbers. Peters was successfully treated for breast cancer in Sudbury.

"I had immediate surgery, and then I had six rounds of chemotherapy and 25 rounds of radiation," Peters said.

With the diagnosis of cancer on the rise in the north as the population ages, that puts growing pressure on the cancer centre.

Michael King is an epidemiologist at the Sudbury and District Health Unit.

"If current rates of cancer remain the same, over the next 10 years, we would see approximately a 20 per cent increase in the number of new cancer diagnoses in northeastern Ontario simply by shifting our demographics into the older age categories," King said.

Planning for that shift is underway.

"There's going to be pressures. There's no doubt about it," said Mark Hartman, vice-president of regional cancer services at the Northeast Cancer Centre.

"With health-care dollars being increasingly scarce, we need to make sure we are as efficient as possible with the space that we have, but I think it will expand," Hartman said. The centre's last expansion was in 2004.

Cancer Care Ontario is currently reviewing the demand for treatment in the province, and whether the current network of cancer centres in the province should be expanded, including the one in Sudbury.