Prostate Cancer Petitioner Challenges Political Parties To Front Up And Commit To Less Dead Men

Politicians from most political parties were present at the handover yesterday of a petition of 30,000 + signatures calling for an early detection program for prostate cancer to be implemented. Gerry Brownlee formally presented the petition to Parliament prior to parliamentary question time.

“It’s great that the politicians came out to receive the petition. But my challenge to each political party is to make a public commitment prior to the election that they will take the first steps to the implementation of an early detection program for prostate cancer, just as we have for bowl, breast, and cervical cancer. New Zealanders need to know not only who says they support men’s health, but will actually specifically commit to what it will take to save men like my husband’s lives. Just too many men are dying early unnecessarily, and it needs to stop,” Kristine Hayward, who instigated the petition said today.

Kristine’s husband Bruce died from prostate cancer almost four years ago aged 66. He is one of more than 700 who die a year from the cancer. More than 4000 men are diagnosed, and it is anticipated that this number will continue to increase.

Hayward says many of these deaths are preventable. Bruce, a registered nurse like Kristine, had regular medical check-ups with his GP which included prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests. These showed that his levels were rising – a key warning sign – but by the time he was referred to a specialist his cancer had metastasised and could not be treated.

“My main concern is that there is no centralised population-based programme for diagnosis and treatment for men who have an elevated PSA test,” says Hayward.

“Current testing is unfunded, disorganised and inequitable, allowing too many men to die. There’s no centralised national screening programme as there is for breast, bowel or cervical cancers. Things need to change to provide a better level of healthcare for New Zealand men.”

Prostate Cancer Foundation New Zealand President Danny Bedingfield says significant advances in technology and improved diagnostic methods mean previous risks from prostate treatment have been reduced, and the latest research clearly shows that a comprehensive early-detection programme holds the promise of halving mortality from the disease.

“A national early-detection scheme can be leveraged off existing infrastructure in place for breast, cervical and bowel screening programmes. We’re asking government to implement a pilot scheme similar to the European Union’s, which would be a low risk, sensible way to learn, and then scale-up from there.”

Some background on early detection programmes in New Zealand:
Cancer kills. Early detection of cancer reduces the number of people who die from it. Whatever the circumstance, there are always better clinical outcomes if the existence of cancer is known earlier. New Zealand agrees with this and currently takes action on some cancers. For example, every year:

1. Breast cancer: 3400 [1] women are diagnosed, with 600 deaths. A comprehensive early detection programme was started in 2017.
2. Colorectal cancer: 1500 women and 1700 men are diagnosed, with 1200 deaths[2]. A comprehensive early detection programme was started in 2017.
3. Cervical cancer: 160 women are diagnosed, with about 50[3] deaths. A comprehensive early detection programme was started in 1991.

And because New Zealand values lives so much, we also have a significant

$61 million [4] “Road to Zero” [5] campaign underway seeking to reduce the number of deaths on the road to zero. In 2022, 380 [6] people died on New Zealand roads.

And of course, the Government took significant measures to prevent deaths from Covid-19 from January 2020 till now, which has seen 2716 [7] covid 19 deaths, and has a budget of circa $61 billion [8] to prevent deaths and support the community [9].

Over the same time period, around 2100 men died of prostate cancer.

Many of these deaths will have been premature.

So the Government accepts it is worthwhile to invest early to save New Zealanders’ lives. BUT, when it comes to prostate cancer this appears to be ignored.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer (apart from skin cancers) in Kiwi men – more than 4000 [10] men are diagnosed and over 700 [11] die from prostate cancer every year.

This petition says NZ should invest in a centralised early detection programme to have less men die unnecessarily.

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