The top doctor at Windsor Regional Hospital is telling people not to hold off on cancer screening.
Chief of Staff, Dr. Wassim Saad told AM800's The Morning Drive that screening is down significantly for breast cancer, colon cancer and cervical cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic when you compared 2019 and 2020.
"I can tell you in our region for breast {cancer} screening, cases were down by almost 6,000. For colon cancer screening, they were down by more than 5,000. These are significant drops in screening," he says.
Dr. Saad says for the past three years before the pandemic, cancer cases were slowly rising year-over-year.
"So there's no reason to suspect after three years of s steady rise, all of a sudden it suddenly plummets. That's because there isn't screening. So the concern now is, where are these patients? When they get screened are they going to be at an advanced stage and harder to treat and that's the scary part," he says.
Dr. Saad says during the first wave of the pandemic going back to March 2020, cancer screenings across Ontario were cancelled and wouldn't be reopened until July, a four month gap.
He believes factors for the drop include the reduced and cancelled services, combined with the reluctance of some to go to a hospital or see a doctor during the pandemic, over a fear over contracting COVID-19.
But Dr. Saad says now the the message is clear, go get your cancer screening done and updated.
"The screening centres are safe. You're not going to get COVID from your doctor's officer, you're not going to get it from the screening areas," he adds.