Aimee-Rose Yates was just 29 when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Photo: Supplied
- Eighteen months after Christopher Luxon promised to lower bowel screening age, nothing has happened
- Woman with terminal cancer, who asked election debate question that prompted the promise, is not surprised but says the delay is costing lives
- Government says it is committed to introducing a phased lowering of the age
- Bowel Cancer NZ says it has had a constructive meeting with Health Minister Simeon Brown
A woman with terminal cancer is urging the government to fulfil its promise to lower the bowel screening age, a move she says will save lives.
Aimee-Rose Yates was just 29 when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer three years ago.
Eighteen months ago, a question from her in a televised election debate prompted a promise from then-leader of the opposition Christopher Luxon that New Zealand would lower its bowel screening age from 60.
After his first 100 days in office, Yates wrote an open letter to Luxon asking what happened to the promise.
But one year on from the date she sent that letter, the prime minister's commitment to TV3's debate moderator Paddy Gower remains unmet. His promise was to match Australia and lower the age of screening to 50, or 45 if requested.
The issue is so important to Yates that she turned up to that TV debate when she had just started chemotherapy.
As she sat in the audience watching Luxon, and then-Prime Minister Chris Hipkins, make promises, her chemotherapy pump was filling her body with drugs and she had a vomit bag beside her, just in case she needed it.
Six months later, on 3 March last year, she wrote to Luxon.
"Imagine what I could do in 100 days. In a 100 days I might not even be here," Yates told RNZ.
"It was really disappointing to not really get a response, but also to see that nothing is really being done.
"Every day people are getting diagnosed and every day people are dying."
Yates was only diagnosed with colon cancer when she had a colonoscopy, as recommended to her and her siblings after a condition with increased risk of cancer was discovered in a family member.
Apart from diarrhoea, which the Auckland school teacher associated with a gluten and dairy intolerance, Yates had no symptoms of cancer and no idea she had a 6 1/2 centimetre tumour.
"Imagine if I could have been screened five years earlier. Imagine if they'd picked up that my mother had died from a different cancer...
"That could have saved my life."
Replying to the open letter, then-health minister Dr Shane Reti said the government was spending more on cancer drugs, but Yates said that was ambulance-at-the-bottom-of-the-cliff thinking.
RNZ has followed up with Luxon's office and was directed to current health minister Simeon Brown, who said lowering the age was still a priority and the government was committed to doing it in phases.
He was receiving advice on the issue.
No timeline was provided and the lack of change so far has not surprised to Yates.
"Honestly, I wasn't sure that [the promise] would be kept. A lot of politicians can say a lot of great things in election year, but when it comes to actually putting the money and putting their word up to the mark, it's not that important to some."
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of bowel cancer in the world and more than 1200 people die each year, but it is a disease that can be successfully treated if caught early.
Bowel Cancer NZ medical adviser Professor Frank Frizelle said the growing number of younger people with the disease meant change was needed.
"The fact that this has been deferred and not been acted upon is disappointing. The present prime minister made a very clear statement when he was in opposition in those [election] debates, that this wasn't going to happen. It hasn't."
Dropping the screening age to 40 would be optimal, but even setting it at 50 and allowing younger people to opt in would be good, he said.
"This is an investment in the health of the community. This avoids people presenting later with more advanced disease.
"We know the younger the person is the he more likely they'll have advanced disease before they're diagnosed. The more advanced the disease the more expensive it is to treat."
On Monday Bowel Cancer NZ revealed it had met with Brown, outlining its plans for the screening age to drop to 45.
Chief executive Peter Huskinson described the meeting as constructive.
A screening age drop would prevent more than 350 cancer cases and 75 deaths a year, he said.
If nothing changed, Yates said she knew what would happen.
"Unfortunately, until they actually commit properly to doing something and actually lower it, people like me are just going to keep dying," she said.
"You see it on the news every day, which is heartbreaking."
In contrast Yates said her future was uncertain.
"I would like to confidently say that I will be with my family for Christmas, but I couldn't put money on that fact.
"I'm hopeful for the rest of this year but, honestly, I don't know and that's the scariest part."
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