Deputy PM urges urgent action on cancer treatment machine

Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw on Tuesday demanded urgent action to commission a $10 million cancer treatment machine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), warning that lives are being lost while it remains idle.

Acknowledging the delay, Minister of State in the Ministry of Health Davidson Ishmael assured that installation of the linear accelerator machine is finally nearing completion.

“We have people dying while waiting. This can’t continue,” Bradshaw declared in the House of Assembly during debate on a resolution to lease State land at Coverley for a new palliative care facility. “It cannot be that the equipment is sitting there and not being used while people are desperate for treatment. There has to be a sense of urgency.”

A linear accelerator is a machine that uses electricity to generate high-energy beams of X-rays or electrons, commonly used for cancer treatment. One was procured by the government at a cost of approximately $10 million, and it was delivered last year.

Once fully functional, the machine is expected to revolutionise radiation treatment at the QEH by offering more precise and effective therapy, reducing side effects, and improving patient outcomes.

Bradshaw called on health authorities to treat the issue as a matter of national urgency, noting that patients cannot afford to wait any longer.

“We have started the process,” she said. “We know where we want to go. Now we need to act. Lives are on the line.”

She stressed that while the construction of a dedicated hospice by the Barbados Association for Cancer Advocacy (BACA) was welcome and necessary, it should not distract from the need to urgently improve the accessibility and affordability of cancer care across the country.

Bradshaw, a breast cancer survivor, said her personal experience gave her a deeper understanding of the fear and cost that families face when a loved one is diagnosed with the disease.

“Unless you’ve walked that journey, you do not see life in the same way,” she said.

The deputy prime minister argued that the support being extended to BACA through the lease of state lands was a commendable first step, but insisted that systemic improvements must follow, including legislative and administrative changes to ensure patients and their families are not left to suffer unnecessarily.

She noted that cancer-related expenses remain prohibitive for many Barbadian households and that the delays in utilising key medical equipment like the linear accelerator were contributing to needless suffering.

Responding to Bradshaw’s concerns, Minister Ishmael said the QEH needs to complete infrastructural work to accommodate the linear accelerator.

He acknowledged the “direct and targeted questions” from Bradshaw about the piece of equipment that is crucial for cancer patients who cannot afford to go overseas for treatment.

The minister told the chamber he was “disheartened” by the fact that the ministry had not yet delivered on the commitment.

“It is not for a lack of trying, not for a lack of effort. That does not offer any sympathy or any cause for persons to sympathise or empathise but we, as a ministry—and if I could dare speak for the Honourable Member in the other place, the Senior Minister of Health and Wellness . . . he too would tell you if he were standing here—would love for this facility to have already been delivered to the people of Barbados.

“The work continues relative to the establishment of the linear accelerator in our country. There’s a lot of civil works that have been undertaken to be able to facilitate it,” Ishmael told the House.

He added, “Any entity that has any radiation involved, there has to be a special purpose-built facility and space for its housing. Therefore, some of these civil works have taken inordinately long but the team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is working assiduously to ensure that we can get to the point where the civil works are completed.”

The minister said he had been informed that those civil works are due to be finished this week and once that is finished, “the next stage in the process is for the team through whom we have received the linear accelerator [to begin the installation] because it’s already on island.”

The process of installation and commissioning are expected to take about three weeks, the minister disclosed.

In his presentation, Ishmael reminded Barbadians about the importance of early screening not only for cancer but for other non-communicable diseases.

“I want to encourage the people of Barbados, early detection is important. Go get your annual checkups, get screened for everything under the sun if you can,” he urged.

(SM/IMC1)