Professor Karol Sikora has warned that Britain faces “the biggest cancer crisis” he has ever encountered. The Government’s focus on suppressing Covid has “sucked the oxygen away from other pressing health issues” which now require urgent attention, he says in the Spectator.
Cancer, cardiac and countless other patients are crying out for help – but are ministers listening?
Over the last year, politicians have been adopting untried and untested policies, the consequences of which none of us can yet fully grasp. The main aim, of course, of these extraordinary lockdown measures has been to suppress Covid in order to reduce pressure on our hospitals. That has been the metric on which Government approval has been judged.
Whether or not you agree with every restriction, it is clear that this focus has sucked the oxygen away from other pressing health issues. Covid required a response unlike anything we have seen in modern times. But was it right that this happen at the expense of so many other illnesses which have torn apart millions of families?
Too often it has been framed as Covid or cancer; it does not need to be like this. We turned the country on its head to deal with this virus; we now need to tackle the non-Covid health crisis with the same vigour.
I’ve been a consultant oncologist for 40 years. I thought I had seen everything but make no mistake: this is the biggest cancer crisis I have ever encountered. While daily updates on Covid case numbers and deaths give a picture of the grim toll of the pandemic, cancer just doesn’t work like that. A delayed diagnosis can turn a 80% survival rate into 20% and that is over a matter of months, not years. At Rutherford, my cancer centre network, we are now seeing far more patients than usual presenting with later-stage cancers. Lives have already been lost and the insidious, relentless nature of cancer will mean that will continue for some time.
Professor Sikora notes that the biggest issue which needs to be overcome if the crisis is to be dealt with is awareness. He suggests a Downing Street press conference dealing with non-Covid health issues as a starting point.
The PM needs to outline the urgency of the situation and stress that help is there for those that need it. It won’t solve everything, but it will at least start a conversation. It would do a lot more good than some of the current scripted attempts.
In a recent pice for Lockdown Sceptics, Dr Ann Bradshaw, a retired senior lecturer in adult nursing at Oxford Brookes, wrote that the Government’s mixed messages about the safety of the NHS could be putting people off using it.
And what of the mammogram? Will I be socially distanced in the waiting room? Will the radiographer have clean hands? Will the equipment carry Covid specks? The Government warnings ring again, loudly in my ears. Hospitals are breeding grounds. How many secret Covid spreaders will I encounter? To put my mind at rest I Googled “mammogram” and “Covid”. Oh no – apparently, mammograms after Covid vaccinations can give false positives. So that’s out. Easy decision this time. Or is it? What if I have a hidden lump?
Professor Sikora’s article is worth reading in full.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I think the destruction of the NHS has been in the governments sights for quite a while. The withdrawal of services within the NHS and its sole dedication to Covid has been nothing short of criminal.
I regard the governments’ activities which lead to the deaths of tens of thousands as nothing short of corporate manslaughter
The NHS did it to itself. The NHS, PHE, NICE – they all dashed into this, eyes wide open. They chose to kill tens of thousands.
cant see the massive post school opening spike that the ‘modellers’ promised us
Ah well that will be because everybody’s already died since schools went back and no one is left to monitor the terrible toll of the deadly deadly virus that the germ laden kids have been killing their teachers and grannies with. Or something like that. If only people would just wear 97 masks and stop being so entitled about their children’s education. It’s a deadly Global pandemic don’tcha know. Just a few more weeks. There’ll be a spike and the ICUs will be overrun and everybody will be either asymptomatic or dead. And probably both at the same time.
Have you watched a relative or friend die slowly of cancer?
I have. Both.
To inflict such a death on somebody, when it could have been prevented, is nothing short of diabolical.
Those responsible will burn in hell.
I would really like NICE to justify their continued existence. How do they justify being paid, at all, given that their core function has been totally junked this past year? How do we know it won’t continue? If the UK no longer pays any attention to health economics then we need to fire everyone who is supposed to make judgements based on these rational grounds.