It all happened so quickly for Edmonton’s Steven Wong and his family. And now it’s simply not moving quickly enough.
From coaching tee-ball with his kids to lying in a hospital bed with a feeding tube and needing a wheelchair to get around, Wong’s deterioration after his May 2 gastric cancer diagnosis was rapid.
But that was 62 days ago, and the 41-year-old father of three has yet to see an oncologist. His family is desperate to know why.
“He was diagnosed May 2 and I just can’t grasp the fact that, why a cancer patient wouldn’t see an oncologist?” his wife Cici Nguyen told CityNews.
“I’m frustrated that I’ve been left in the dark. Steve’s been left in the dark.”
After Wong’s diagnosis, the family was told by health-care professionals they were going to fight the cancer “aggressively.” Instead, they were met with silence, and what Nguyen describes as a “painful, scary kind of dark.”
“I heard nothing from them,” Nguyen said. “We heard nothing and nothing. We waited because what else were you supposed to do? We had no idea what we were doing.”
Nguyen says her husband has not stepped foot in a medical oncologist’s office, gotten an appointment, or even spoken to a member from the oncology department at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton.
“Do they know that he’s 41? Do they know that he’s a dad of three young kids? Do they know that he wants to fight?” Nguyen said. “And they’ve decided that they don’t want to give him the chance to fight, and the longer that he waits, the chance of him fighting gets shorter.
“I fear everything. I fear every day waking up and him not being here. I fear every day him waking up and not getting treated. So every day that you’re kept in the dark, your fear compounds almost.”
While waiting, Wong had “a whole bunch of complications” from the cancer itself. He first ended up at the University of Alberta Hospital ER with gastric bleeding.
“Everything was seemingly OK, and everything was stable,” Nguyen recounted. “After 12 days, we were discharged. Eleven hours later, we ended up back at the hospital because another complication, his stomach actively perforated.”
Then there was a pneumothorax, collapsed lung, and pleural effusion.
“He’s had some very, very scary complications, to which we’ve now learned that is very uncommon for gastric cancer patients,” she said.
And the whole time, Wong’s cancer is not being treated – only the symptoms.
Nguyen says she holds no ill will towards Alberta’s health professionals – repeatedly praising the U of A’s nurses and doctors. The problem, she says, is the network as a whole.
“It makes me angry that we’ve put blind faith into a system that’s supposed to help us, and that’s supposed to save us, and we’ve put this faith in the system that allows people to fall through the cracks, and they’re OK with it happening. That’s what makes me mad,” she said.
“It’s mind boggling to think that the sickest are in the hospital. And shouldn’t the sickest be seen? It just doesn’t make sense.”
Nguyen also detailed her husband’s diagnosis in a lengthy video posted to her Instagram page. In it, she explains that nearly a dozen doctors have called the Cross Cancer Institute advocating for Wong.
“They’ve been given one-line responses, that he will be ‘reassessed’ when he is out of hospital,” she says in the video. “This now further adds four to six weeks on top of the 60 days we’ve already waited. It’s insane.”
Patients waiting 12-16 weeks: AMA
The Alberta Medical Association says that wait is simply too long and unfortunately all too common these days.
“What’s really sad and heartbreaking and disappointing is that this isn’t an exception,” AMA president Dr. Paul Parks said. “This isn’t one in 100,000 patients go through an experience like this. This is becoming more and more common.”
Data provided by AMA show the number of oncologists practising in Alberta has grown 20 per cent between 2013 and 2022. Meanwhile the number of new cancer cases diagnosed each year in Alberta rose by 40 per cent in the same period.
READ: Cancer care in Alberta is strained, under-resourced, medical association says
“What’s really sad is that this is all mostly a supply and demand issue,” Parks said. “We simply have increasing, huge demand for cancer care, and we just don’t have the supply in Alberta to be able to deliver it in a safe and timely manner.
“Our patient-oriented metrics of how we are doing are getting worse and worse and showing we are lagging behind the other provinces, so we have to do more. We have to be competitive.”
Parks says a standard wait time should be a maximum of four weeks. But cancer patients are now regularly waiting 12 to 16 weeks to see a specialist for the very first time.
“We should be able to do a lot better and it just gives a very concrete, and very easy to understand example of what Albertans are facing now with delays to cancer care.”
Alberta Healthy Ministry, AHS promise solutions
Provincial Health Minister Adriana LaGrange says Alberta’s staffing struggles are being felt across Canada, as provinces race to “address increased workload demands” and “recruit oncology specialists in a highly competitive environment.”
“We remain focused on addressing challenges in attracting, training and retaining health professionals in areas of need,” LaGrange said in a statement.
“We continue to work diligently with AHS to recruit to oncology positions in various locations across Alberta. We’re also working closely with the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary to increase the number of undergraduate medical training seats and residency positions. This will enable more than 100 additional Alberta-trained physicians to practice annually.”
Alberta Health Services says it’s exploring solutions to address “capacity pressures” within cancer care, such as extending clinical hours to reduce wait times.
“We are also continuing to work on improving the overall cancer journey, including effective communications between patients and physicians/specialists,” an AHS spokesperson told CityNews via email.
“While patients wait for treatment or to see an oncologist, Cancer Care Alberta offers patients with psychosocial support, community support groups, education, and supportive care services that can assist them.”
The shortage of cancer specialists exists against the backdrop of a population boom in Alberta, with more than 202,000 people coming to the province last year. And up to 800,000 Albertans don’t have a family doctor, the AMA says, meaning cancers are being detected later, leading to overcrowded emergency departments.
It’s all combining to put a strain on the province’s health-care system, according to the medical association.
‘Devastation and hopelessness’
Nguyen is the first to acknowledge her family’s situation is not unique, existing within a network straining to keep up.
“I’m not the only one,” she said. “There’s so many stories of families, even here, who’ve died waiting. They’ve been diagnosed and died all in the same time that they waited for oncology services, which is mind boggling, and it’s frustrating.
“And it’s almost… it’s inhumane.”
Nguyen is trying to stay positive as she looks to the months ahead, hoping her husband’s first oncology visit is not far around the corner. But it’s a struggle.
“At this point, we don’t know where we’ll be in six months,” she said. “We don’t even know where we are right now, really. So, the anger probably will filter and change into devastation and hopelessness probably is how I would feel further down the line… if not feeling that already.
“He wants to fight, and he didn’t get the chance to fight.”
An online fundraiser for Wong has raised more than $61,000.