Rankin visits Cape Breton to make campaign pledges on cancer care

The Workers’ Compensation Board of Nova Scotia covers six cancers. The Liberals promise to add 11 more.

Rankin said firefighters are on the front lines and define true public service.

“Today, we recognize the sacrifices that our volunteer and professional firefighters have made to this province every day,” he said.

Nova Scotia professional firefighters have been covered for six cancers under the Workers’ Compensation Act since 2003. In 2019, the province added volunteer firefighters.

Gilbert MacIntyre, Deputy Chief of the Cape Breton Regional Fire Department, was delighted with the news.

“If you ask someone what hurts, what kills, what hurts firefighters, they’ll tell you a fallen building, a window,” he said.

“Nobody thinks of cancer, and cancer is what brings us out.”

In 2015, a study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that firefighters are 9% more likely to get cancer than the general public and 14% more likely to die from cancer, MacIntyre said.

A more recent study from the University of British Columbia found that modern fires are more toxic than those previously studied.

“The fires of 60 years ago burned a different material than the fires of today,” MacIntyre said. “A lot more synthetics and carcinogens in today’s fires and that’s what is killing us.”

The most recent study found that there were 568 work-related firefighter deaths over a 10-year period, he said. Of these, about 85 percent were cancer deaths, eight percent were chronic diseases, and six percent were injuries.

NDP says it tried to expand coverage in 2019

Following the Liberals ‘announcement, the New Democratic Party issued a statement reminding the Liberals of a 2019 NDP bill that would have tripled the number of cancers covered by workers’ compensation.

The party said the Liberals rejected the suggestion to overhaul the entire law.

Following the Liberal firefighters’ announcement, Rankin went to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital, where he pledged the Liberals would fund the operating costs of an imaging device for treatment against the cancer.

The Cape Breton Regional Hospital Foundation plans to start raising funds for a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner to help with the early diagnosis of cancer.

Foundation CEO Paula MacNeil said the machine could cost up to $ 3 million to purchase and an additional $ 700,000 each year to operate.

She said cancer rates in Cape Breton are “very high” and the machine would save about 500 area residents from having to travel to Halifax to get a PET scan.

“Barriers like finances, transportation and means make Halifax feel like a world of its own,” she said.

“We need to make sure that people don’t have to travel five hours to access care during what can be one of the most vulnerable times of their lives.”

Rankin said allowing the purchase of the imaging device is a matter of fairness for all Cape Breton residents and that it fits with the billion dollar restructuring of CBRM hospitals.

“I think if we’re going to build a stand-alone cancer center as part of our redevelopment, then you need to have a PET scanner,” he said.

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