Professor Skegg
Heather Anderson continues her summary of attending the Cancer Care at the Crossroads conference.
For me the Conference started on Wednesday afternoon. The pre-Conference lecture was from Dr Fatima Cardoso. She is a world reknown oncologist with an interest in Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC) from Lisbon. She and others have been instrumental in setting up ESMO. This is a 10 step guidelines program to improve outcomes for those with ABC. Dr Cardoso travels the world helping countries roll out these guidelines. It is her belief that they can available for all cancers. Where the guidelines are in place, there is a significant improvement in outcome for ABC patients. https://www.otago.ac.nz/wellington/otago706540.pdf
At this lecture I was lucky enough to meet Monica Koia from Palmerston North. She is about to complete her PHD in Maori Health. We attended the opening at Parliament. We listened to personal cancer stories from Pip Brown (Ladyhawke) and Mike Hesson, whose brother passed with cancer.
The most interesting was that of Prof Skegg – (Here is a link to his presentation). In it he spoke of all the years of conferences and meetings that he had been involved with. He talked of the successive governments and Ministers of Health he had worked with. He spoke highly of some work but was firm in his comments that the previous Government had dropped the ball. He challenged the Minister of Health and MoH to actually do something and make a difference.
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