Queensland Health and Cancer Council in fight over access to cancer data

Apr 20 2008

Queensland Health Minister Stephen Robertson is again embroiled in yet another crisis which will leave Queenslanders doubting his ability to deal with the job.

Having seemingly survived the scandal over the appalling living and working conditions endured by medics in the Torres Strait and other remote communities, he is now being accused of misleading the public over the serious issue of researchers accessing medical data.

Professor Ian Frazer, a scientist with an international reputation and also a former Australian of the Year, has accused the Queensland Government of failing to resolve a situation they have known about for two years.

Professor Frazer, who developed the cervical cancer vaccine, says there is no basis for Robertson's claims that privacy provisions restricted the release of cancer register information which is critical for the effective delivery of cancer control in Queensland.

The delay in resolving the issue has led to threats by the Cancer Council to challenge in the Supreme Court their right to gain access to Government statistics which will help with research and prevention programs.

While Mr Robertson has said releasing the information could breach patient confidentiality, scientists suspect that the Queensland Government is trying to suppress embarrassing data on why survival rates are lower in regional and rural Queensland which also reveal detection and treatment standards are failing outside of Brisbane.

In a complete u-turn the minister now says recent advice indicates that privacy will be upheld and the Cancer Council will be able to obtain and distribute data from the cancer registry to researchers without Queensland Health approval.

Only in Queensland do researchers need case-by-case approval to access the cancer register for the development of prevention and treatment strategies and that process can take up to a year to complete.

Though Mr Robertson says 14 'approvals' have already been granted and an agreement had been reached with the Cancer Council which ensures ongoing access to the critical data, the claim has been disputed by the Cancer Council.

Cancer Council chief executive Jeff Dunn says as yet no agreement has been reached prior to a meeting called by Queensland Health for Monday and the 14 'approvals' referred to have been only partial approvals that in most cases have denied access to regionally localised information.

Mr. Dunn says the information is the key to understanding cancer survival rates in Queensland.

The Queensland Government has been accused by critics of hampering important research and trying to conceal facts.