Simeon Brown

Well, there's been a significant increase in the demand, partially because obviously we've got an ageing population.

But also because we as a government have invested in a significant number of additional cancer medicines, 33 new cancer medicines that were funded in Budget 24.

And many of those require additional infusions.

And so this is responding to the increased medicines that we're providing as a government, more people getting more modern treatments, which is meaning that they have greater survival responses to cancer diagnoses.

And so this is responding to that.

But it's also bringing those cancer treatments closer to home.

And so, for example, when we announced this yesterday, we did that at Waitakere Hospital, which is going to start offering cancer infusions from tomorrow.

Up until today, everyone in the Waitakere area of West Auckland, quarter of a million people, if you require infusions, you have to travel into Auckland Hospital to get those infusions.

So that's treating people closer to home in their community.

It's going to make a big difference for patients.

Well, we're expecting around another 13,000 additional cancer infusions.

The exact number of patients will depend on how many infusions you require each year based on the type of treatment that you have.

But ultimately, 218 chair days, three to five patients per chair per day.

So it's up to around 1,000 additional patients will be able to be treated each

receive an infusion based upon this investment on a daily basis.

Well, we have to focus on prevention, we have to focus on early detection, and we also have to make sure we're treating people

And so we're focused on all of those areas.

And in terms of the prevention and early detection, we've rolled out the lowering age of the bowel screening to 58.

We're extending breast screening to age 74.

We've got a huge amount of focus in those areas as well.