Thank you.
First off, let me thank all parties and all members for their support for the Canadian strategy for cancer control. This is a wonderful thing, and I think this bill fits nicely within that.
The Canadian Cancer Society, on behalf of its 220,000 volunteers across the country, welcomes this opportunity to address the issue of the employment insurance illness benefit. We congratulate committee members for tackling this important health issue.
I will present five reasons to show why 15 weeks of benefits is not long enough for cancer patients.
Number one, an individual may have been ill or unable to work for quite a while before he or she applies for EI benefits. In the case of a cancer patient, there would have undoubtedly been waiting times for diagnostic tests and surgery before receiving a diagnosis, and a recovery waiting period prior to the start of treatment.
Second, once started, treatment is typically spread over many months, and recovery can take several more months.
Third, individuals facing serious illness have many collateral financial stresses, including the cost of uninsured treatment and drugs, travel costs for specialized treatment, special diets, and non-prescribed medical supplies. Temporary income replacement of longer duration would greatly relieve many of these burdens. As has been referred to earlier, a 2004 Canadian breast cancer network survey of nearly 500 women with breast cancer found that there is a significant, unexpected, and stressful financial impact on women diagnosed with breast cancer and on their families. When asked whether 15 weeks of employment insurance benefits were enough to get them through treatment, 75% of respondents said they were not long enough, and 76% of respondents reported being off work for over 15 weeks.
Fourth, chemo patients can be immune-suppressed for a period of time after completion of treatment and thus need to remain segregated from groups, extending the optimal recovery period.
Fifth, even after an individual completes treatment for a serious illness, there are many vague lingering effects, although medical documentation is difficult. For example, chemotherapy patients report concentration and endurance deficits—they call this “chemo fog”—fatigue, personality changes, and the like; these deficits impact their ability to perform job tasks at safe or pre-condition levels. Psychological issues around serious illness and suitability for return to work may be poorly documented, but they are nonetheless very real.
For many patients the recovery from the effects of cancer often takes many months. Requiring recovering cancer patients to return to the workforce before they have regained some measure of improved health is to put in jeopardy the patients' and their families' prospects for recovery.
We all bear the burden when a patient returns too early to the workforce. When their recovery falters and their health suffers, there are increased costs, not only to the health care system but also to family life, the economy, and other contributions of individuals to society.
Bill C-278 is a good bill. The Canadian Cancer Society urges committee members to support it.
Thank you.