David Foote, who is one of Canada's leading demographers, has just written a report that points out that heart and cardiovascular problems are going to increase and that we're not prepared for the impact of what happens as baby boomers undertake the long march into the joys of aging. The third reality that we have to contend with, and that makes the system more complex and expensive, is that people who are very, very ill live much longer and cope with their illnesses. That's why we have the tremendous problem of bed management, the tremendous problem of home care. Cancer and heart disease are perhaps the most publicized examples, but they have parallels in every major illness. Leukemia, which I have learned something about over the last 15 years, is a good example.
Childhood leukemia is no longer a death sentence.
In fact, we can now speak of cures, but only after a very long and gruelling series of treatments. The results of treatment are less dramatic for adult leukemia, but we're seeing more success this decade than the last, and the next decade will be better still. As a leukemia advocate, I know that some hospitals are simply transferring these long-term chronic cases to the bigger institutions downtown because they can't cope with the impact of ongoing costs. On one hand, the success of new treatments, drugs and techniques of diagnosis is all good news. The hard news is that these treatments are expensive, and in the case of the drugs that are administered outside hospital they're not, for the most part, publicly insured.