Transport Minister Simeon Brown during a transport announcement in Auckland on 3 December 2024. Photo: RNZ / Marika Khabazi
Health Minister Simeon Brown says the government will further decrease the age for free colonoscopy screening once the health system can handle it.
Currently, the health system does not have the capacity to undertake the number of colonoscopies further lowering the screening age, he said.
"We want to go further, we want to match Australia. The key limiting factor is access to colonoscopies," Brown told Morning Report.
Australia currently offers free bowel cancer screening to people aged 45 to 74.
The government announced plans on Thursday to lower the age for free bowel cancer screening for all New Zealanders from aged 60-74 to aged 58 to 74. The age eligibility would progressively lowered over four years at a cost of $36 million.
It would be funded by "redirecting" money previously set aside to lower the age for Māori and Pacific people. In December, the government announced the end of a pilot programme that allowed Māori and Pacific people to access bowel cancer screening starting at age 50.
Māori and Pacific people already on the free screening programme who were aged between 50 and 60 would still be able to access the programme, but no new patients would be brought in.
"As we can increase the number of colonoscopies we will be going further and reducing the age even lower," Brown told Morning Report on Friday.
However, despite repetitive questions by Morning Report, Brown would not say when or how access to colonoscopies will increase. Instead, he said the government has asked Health NZ to provide a plan around how they can quickly increase colonoscopy screening.
Cancer Society's chief executive Nicola Coom said it was a "real concern" that the governments announcement didn't say how we are going to address this problem.
She described the announcement as "bitter-sweet" since, on the other hand, the government is cutting the programme that allowed Māori and Pacific people to access bowel cancer screening starting at age 50.
"It's really difficult to celebrate this announcement like this," Coon said.
She said New Zealand has one of the highest rates of bowel cancer, which is a reason to prioritise it.
"You shouldn't have to trade off one group for another. This should be an 'and, and' announcement."
Coon said Cancer Society believes we should be focusing on our high risk groups which are Māori, Pacific people and those with a genetic predisposition to the cancer.
"It seems common sense to get the tools to those that need it most," Coom said.
Brown reiterated on Morning Report the governments approach to screening would save more lives.
"The advice I've received is bowel cancer risk is similar across all cancer groups at the same age, and what I'm focused on is using the resources here to maximise the number of lives saved," Brown said.
This is despite researchers finding, for Māori, 30 percent of bowel cancer in women and 24 percent of cases in men happen before the age of 50 - compared to 13 percent in all Kiwi women and 18 percent in all Kiwi men.
Brown said the health inequity was largely an issue of testing rates being down in Māori and Pacific communities.
"That's an issue of testing not being at the same rate... We want to focus on getting those testing rates up."
As part of the governments announcement on Thursday, it brought in additional testing for Māori and Pacific communities, as well as promotional campaigns.
