$393m spike in cancer hospital bill shows reform needed now

Cancer has moved from ninth to fifth on the list of most costly diseases to Australia’s health system in only four years, strengthening the case for more investment in cancer prevention and health workforce, Cancer Council Australia said.

Cancer Council Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Professor Ian Olver, said the Australian Institute of Health Welfare’s (AIHW’s) new report, Health expenditure Australia 2006–07, showed that cancer treatment costs would be difficult to sustain unless long-term structural change in health funding began now.
 
“For cancer to jump four places on the list of costly diseases in such a short time is a major concern,” Professor Olver said. “This includes a $393 million increase in annual hospital costs between 2001 and 2005, which reflects the growing number of people developing cancer as our population ages.”
 
Professor Olver said around a third of cancer deaths in Australia were attributed to lifestyle, yet there was no comprehensive national plan and targets for reducing obesity and tobacco use, nor a long-term commitment to a national skin cancer prevention campaign.
 
“On population ageing forecasts, we can expect cancer incidence to increase by around 30 per cent every 10 years until the middle of the century, and that does not factor in the significant burden obesity will impose on cancer treatment costs,” he said. “An increase in hospital costs of $393 million in just four years could be just the start of a long-term blow-out in cancer treatment costs if we don’t start investing more in prevention now.”
 
Professor Olver said the data also added to the urgency of implementing the government’s bowel cancer screening program, which could save millions of dollars in hospital costs by picking up signs of bowel cancer early, when it was far less costly to treat.
 
He said the health workforce would also need to expand, with improved cancer competency, as cancer burden grew sharply.
 
“The Rudd Government has made some promising announcements about re-engineering the health system towards better prevention and eliminating the blame game,” Professor Olver said.
 
“If Australia is to avoid a potentially unsustainable cancer burden as our population ages, government will need to follow through on these proposed approaches over the long term.”

(Source: Cancer Council Australia: October 2008)