published letters

Published in The West Australian on Monday, June 10, 2013

Claims of “third world” conditions at Princess Margaret Hospital, echoed prominently in the West’s headlines (5 June), are reportedly based on such problems as some staff having been unavailable when families needed them, and some old furniture provided for parents being unpleasant. These concerns are very real for parents of children with cancer, but are they really like the “third world”?

Internationally, 80% of children with cancer live in low- and middle-income countries, and their survival rate is about 25%. In high-income countries, including Australia, the survival rate from childhood cancer is about 80%. This means that most children dying of cancer in the “third world” would be expected to live if they had access to the health resources available in Australia.

Our health system should heed PMH cancer specialist Angela Alessandri’s call (6 June) for more help to meet the growing demand for children’s cancer services. But we should also do what we can, as individuals and a society, to reduce global inequality. While hundreds of thousands of children with cancer are dying worldwide because of poverty, and while our federal government continues to stall on its commitments to international aid, likening PMH to the “third world” is a particularly unhelpful piece of hyperbole.

Dr Brett Montgomery

(Note: this letter was in response to several articles such as this.)