Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Nicola Coom: Cancer Society CEO on the funding and expanding of cancer infusion treatment

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Nicola Coom: Cancer Society CEO on the funding and expanding of cancer infusion treatment · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: More cancer infusions happening in more places. We're getting fourteen
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  Speaker 1: new centers, fourteen upgraded centers, thirteen thousand extra infusions. A. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this is all good stuff. That's a twelve percent increase
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  Speaker 1: backed by two hundred and ten million dollars in funding
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  Speaker 1: that set aside in the budget. Nicola Comb, chief executive
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  Speaker 1: at Cancer Society, with me this morning. Nicola, good morning,
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  Speaker 1: Good morning, Ryan. You're welcoming this. I'm assuming good news.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Yeah, this is an announcement that means that cancer
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  Speaker 2: patients can access their treatment faster and much closer to home.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, we're certainly welcoming this. It's a step towards
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  Speaker 2: rolling out those new medicines that the government government announced
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  Speaker 2: back back in twenty twenty four. So without this new
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  Speaker 2: new infrastructure and in clinical capacity, those medicines wouldn't get
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  Speaker 2: to those patients. So this is a good step. It
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  Speaker 2: reduces travel time for these families, and in today's environment
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  Speaker 2: where the cost of travel with the extra fuel prices,
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  Speaker 2: that hits really hard. Anything that reduces that travel time
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  Speaker 2: is a win. And it also puts treatments closer to
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  Speaker 2: rural communities, and then it frees up critical capacity in
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  Speaker 2: our major tertiary hospitals so that they can be focusing
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  Speaker 2: on the acute cases. So a win for families, win
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  Speaker 2: for our communities, and definitely a win for the system overall.
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  Speaker 1: Are you saying that we've got a government who bought
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  Speaker 1: new cancer medicines, brought online new cancer medicines and then
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  Speaker 1: actually provides the infrastructures for which to deliver them.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we are, we are. Look we are. While
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  Speaker 2: we celebrated that investment of six hundred and four million
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  Speaker 2: in new medicines when the last budget was delivered, we
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  Speaker 2: were a little critical at the time and said, look,
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  Speaker 2: it's great to be funding these medicines, but the reality
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  Speaker 2: is there's going to be challenges getting them to patients,
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  Speaker 2: and those challenges is exactly what's been addressed in this
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  Speaker 2: announcement yesterday, which is the infrastructure, so the location in
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  Speaker 2: a place and essentially the cheers for those patients to
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  Speaker 2: sit in to have their infusions, and the workforce to
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  Speaker 2: deliver their infusions. So this gives us the complete package
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  Speaker 2: of rolling those new medicines out.
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  Speaker 1: Is it enough to meet demand because demand is increasing,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Absolutely? Is it enough to meet demand? No? Probably not.
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  Speaker 2: The demand is coming at us at pace. And look,
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  Speaker 2: what we'd really love to see is government starting to
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  Speaker 2: look a little upstream, rather than investing in our three
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  Speaker 2: year political cycles, looking at actually, what can we invest
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  Speaker 2: in to prevent cancers in the first place. We know
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  Speaker 2: that one in three cancers are preventable, so we'd like
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  Speaker 2: to see some new investment in the next budget looking
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  Speaker 2: at cancer prevention. But this credit to the government, this
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  Speaker 2: is a good step.
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  Speaker 1: Nikola Cone, Chief Executive Cancer Citing for.
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