N.S. officials plan how to keep cancer treatments going during COVID-19 crisis

Cancer care officials in Nova Scotia are working on a strategy to ensure patients still receive treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As of Thursday, no patients or staff had shown symptoms of the virus at the Cape Breton Cancer Centre, which treats about 625 patients a week and is one of two such facilities in the province.

But Elwood MacMullin, the centre's medical director, said they're making plans in the event of a widespread outbreak to ensure staff are still able to provide care.

"We're trying to put together a plan so that only half our staff at a time are actually working in the centre and the other half are working from home, so that in the event that we have contamination, we may have half of our team still available," he said.

MacMullin said the Nova Scotia cancer care program is working to identify patients who would continue to need urgent care, as well as ways to deliver that care, in the event of a staff shortage.

On Friday, a spokesperson for the Nova Scotia Health Authority said the provincial cancer care team is not aware of any patients or staff with COVID-19 at the QEII Cancer Care Centre in Halifax, or at any of the community cancer clinics.

The province said there are 207 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nova Scotia, as of Friday.

MacMullin said the Cape Breton centre is committed to providing "essential" care, as well as seeing any new cases that are referred. They're also trying to triage cases to prioritize patients with more aggressive cancers.

Cases that might be delayed in the future include follow-up appointments or infusions of drugs to prevent cancer recurrences. But MacMullin stressed that hasn't happened at this point and no treatments have been deferred.

MacMullin said the centre is carefully screening patients for any symptoms of the virus, both before they come to the centre and again when they arrive.

"Our population tends to be sicker," he said. "They have some compromise of their immunity because of their disease, and also because of the treatments that we use."

Offering reassurance

MacMullin said the centre is practising physical distancing, as much as possible, for patients receiving treatment.

A health authority spokesperson said all out-patient services continue in medical, radiation and gynecologic oncology, as well as hematology, although efforts are being made when possible to reduce how often patients must go to the hospital.

Some in-person appointments may instead be done by telephone or video conferencing. New patients are to be seen by oncologists, although telemedicine may be used more often.

The Cape Breton centre is also preparing "in the unlikely event" of having a patient who requires urgent chemotherapy but is COVID-positive, MacMullin said.

In the meantime, he said, they're doing their best to answer questions for patients who are anxious both about their disease and COVID-19.

"We're doing everything we can to keep them informed and reassure them, and to put in place a plan to deal with them should be the worst-case scenario come to fruition," he said.

MORE TOP STORIES