When Bishop Brigante underwent his first chemotherapy session, he never expected it to end in joy.
Brigante, a 45-year-old artist living in the Toronto area, was diagnosed with colorectal cancer about three months prior, in October 2023.
The months that followed illuminated a gap in Ontario’s health care for Brigante – too many young people were being denied early screening for colorectal cancer.
“The more I talked to people, the more I heard, ‘My doctor won’t give me [a colonoscopy]. I’m not old enough. I have to be 50,’” Brigante told CTV News Toronto in an interview last week. “I realized this problem is so much larger than just me and I had to do something actionable.”
While colon cancer rates across all age groups have steadily declined over the last 20 years, Brigante’s effort comes as the disease has seen an unexplained increase in younger Canadians.
Bishop Brigante is seen in this undated photo. The 45-year-old Toronto-area artist is seeking to lower the minimum age for colonoscopies from 50 to 30 years old.(Supplied)
“I had no idea about any of this – and my peers, I’m talking about people in their 30s and 40s – they didn’t know either,” Brigante said. “There was just this big flaw in the system.”
So, on Jan. 26, he started a petition seeking to lower the minimum age for colonoscopies from 50 to 30 years old.
Three days later, coming out of his first chemotherapy session and checking the petition, Brigante was met with 5,000 names.
“It’s heartbreaking. It’s heartwarming. It’s all across the board,” he said.
Five days later, 10,000 people had signed.
When Brigante first approached NDP Health Critic France Gélinas, she assumed he was a constituent in need of help accessing cancer care.
“But to my surprise, he wanted to help others,” Gélinas told CTV News Toronto last week.
On Tuesday, Brigante, alongside his partner Melanie McVey and Gélinas, presented the petition at Queen’s Park, boasting about 25,000 signatures after only a month of circulation.
“I’ve been around for a long time and I’m often called the queen of petitions,” NDP Health Critic Gélinas told CTV News Toronto. “And I would have never dreamed that we could get 25,000 in less than a month.”
Bishop Brigante (centre) is seen at Queen’s Park after his petition to lower the minimum age for colonoscopies from 50 to 30 is presented in the legislature. (Supplied)
As Brigante watched Gélinas put forth his petition to Ontario’s politicians, he was brought back to the moment of diagnosis.
“I was terrified, holding onto my lady’s hand so hard as I cried and took in all the information, and I thought about the millions of people after me that are going to experience that, and I knew I needed to change that,” Brigante said.
“It’s not even an option to me – lowering the age criteria for a colonoscopy is imperative.”
The government now has 24 sitting days to provide a written response to Brigante’s request.
Colon cancer in Canada
The Canadian Cancer Society estimates that about one in 16 men and one in 18 women will develop colorectal cancer during their lifetime. The disease makes up about 11 per cent of all cancer death in the country.
Among all age groups in Canada, colorectal cancer is actually decreasing, with rates going down almost every year since the 1980s.
But the decrease seems to be confined to older generations, likely due to an increase in screening after 50.
Among younger adults, incidence rates are increasing – not only in Canada, but in the U.S. and “several other high-income countries,” according to the society. One study, published in the Cancer Epidemiol in 2020, also reported a “concerning increase” in the disease among younger Canadians.
“We are hearing reports of colorectal cancer increasing in adults younger than 50,” Elizabeth Holmes, Executive Director at the Canadian Cancer Society, told CTV News Toronto. “The reason for this remains unclear, but we are monitoring it closely.”
Currently, those diagnosed with colon cancer have a just under 70 per cent chance of survival – a prognosis that continues to improve with screening and treatment technologies.
“At this time, more research is needed to mitigate risk,” Holmes said.
Get a colon cancer screening
Age is still the most significant risk factor with colorectal cancer, Holmes said.
While 50 remains the age for the introduction of routine screening, Holmes underlined that guidance is only in place for symptom-free patients with no history of the disease.
“If you have symptoms, they are not the guidelines that should be referenced,” she said. “If you have blood in your stool, unexplained weight loss, fatigue, and/or changes in bowel movements, you should ask your doctor for a screening.”
Ultimately, Holmes feels patients should listen to their bodies. “Trust yourself, you know what’s right,” she said.
With continued investment in treatment and early detection, the Canadian Cancer Society expects that overall prevalence of colorectal cancer will decrease. Those investments, according to Brigante, don’t need to be costly for the government, either.
“It costs so much money to treat somebody with cancer – tens of thousands of dollars – as opposed to just giving somebody a colonoscopy when they have symptoms of colon cancer,” he said.
“I don’t know how it got to this level, but it’s God’s work now and he’s taking the wheel.” Brigante continued. “I’m just a vessel that’s trying to save lives and, you know, make it a lucrative situation for the government at the same time.”
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
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