TRANSCRIPT
Imagine facing the most challenging moment of your life - being diagnosed with cancer.
Now imagine your chances of survival might be compromised, not by the disease itself, but because of your background or where you live.
That's what happened to Lynette Liddle.
he was working at a medical research facility in Alice Springs when she fell ill - and at first, was diagnosed with a burst ulcer.
But a different hospital - in Adelaide - revealed the full truth: she also had blood cancer.
"I went straight into surgery and then woke up to find that I had a lymphoma and that they had done a splenectomy and taken out part of my stomach and part of my pancreas, my spleen and part of my stomach."
Her mother was also diagnosed late with the same cancer - too late to save her life.
While Lynette has survived, one of the most challenging parts of her diagnosis was being separated from family and friends because of the need to be close to medical support in Adelaide.
And being unable to work brought financial difficulties on top of the emotional trauma.
"I didn't have visiting family, I couldn't have my friends in terms of being an Aboriginal person. I'd worked in the hospital, I'd worked on clinical trials, I had a PhD, so I knew how things worked. But a lot of it was the social emotional stuff. The doctors had always said to me, we can deal with the medical stuff, but you have to deal with the psychological stuff. And as we know, it takes a large toll on your health. And I think that needs to be reinforced and coupled a lot more with the support that the doctors and nurses are too run off their feet to be able to do.”
Bill Stavreski is the Head of Research for the Leukaemia Foundation.
He says Lynette's experience is relatively common.
The Leukaemia Foundation has released the results of a survey that's found seven in 10 Australians are concerned that factors such as where they live, their age, gender, sexual orientation, income, or even the language spoken at home, could impact the treatment they receive if diagnosed with cancer.
"This year, close to 20,000 Australians will be diagnosed with blood cancer. What we also know is that 6,000 Australians will lose their life to blood cancers. The need for an accurate and quick diagnosis is critical."
At least some of those fears appear to be well-founded.
The Foundation's research concluded that those living regionally, First Nations peoples, migrant communities, and LGBTQIA+ individuals are among those who can face significant barriers in getting a timely cancer diagnosis - or receiving the best available treatment and supportive care.
“There's a big divide that is affecting many different communities. And it's a number of reasons for this and that could be language and having culturally appropriate information, not understanding and not having the appropriate access to information. So for Australians who speak language other than English at home as their first language, being able to have information in their first language, being able to navigate, understand cancer services can often be an impediment to being able to access support and care and that timely diagnosis in a quick way. So for all communities, not being familiar with the health system is a significant burden and issue for receiving treatment and an accurate diagnosis.”
But discrimination is also a factor.
Assistant Minister for Health Ged Kearney told the SBS 'Hysterical' podcast earlier this year there was widespread gender bias against women in the health system.
"They are simply not believed. They are accused of all sorts of terrible things if they present with pain that the doctor has trouble diagnosing, that they are drug shopping, or that they are - to use a terrible term - hysterical or that they are over-anxious, when actually in fact there are serious medical conditions occurring."
Indigenous Australians also face discrimination.
Nearly half ((49.7 per cent)) have experienced significant bias in 2019, a figure that has doubled in recent years - but overall, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population has a higher cancer incidence and poorer survival rates.
Lynette Liddle says her experience is that the health system is not fully prepared for First Nations patients.
"I could thoroughly understand now why people just want to give up and go and say, I just want to go home and die because the treatment is long. It's hard. You have to be persistent.... But being an aboriginal person, I had to factor in that there was a lower life expectancy that there weren't a lot of doctors that were trained in dealing with remote or rural Aboriginal patients."
Bill Stavreski says these kinds of trends are deeply concerning.
The Leukaemia Foundation has now launched a new campaign it hopes will address these inequities.
Bill says they want to see new resources and research programs that focus on these priority populations so that no one’s chances of surviving cancer are dictated by where they live - or who they are.
"The Leukemia Foundation's Fair Go campaign is focused on addressing these issues front on and providing information, support, and care to ensure that all Australians have the information to be able to face blood cancer head on. The Fair Go Campaign will also provide information for health professionals to be able to support and assist patients and families who are dealing with a blood cancer diagnosis."
