Part of 4. Questions to the Minister for Health and Social Services – in the Senedd at 2:02 pm on 8 July 2020.
Thank you for that answer, Minister. Hundreds of doctors in Wales say that important wider patient care has been neglected during the COVID-19 pandemic. As of yesterday, the number of people who have died in Wales from COVID-19 was 1,531. Each one of those is a very sad story of loss for the family concerned, but the drop in the number of people starting vital cancer treatment is far higher. For example, in April alone, it was more than 5,000, and referrals to a single cancer pathway have halved since lockdown. Dr David Bailey, chair of the British Medical Association's Welsh council has said, and I quote,
'many ill patients are not getting the care they need now—they are risking their conditions getting worse and some may even die as a result.'
Research from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health shows that in the UK, more children have died from having treatment delayed during lockdown than have died from COVID-19, including nine from cancer sepsis and metabolic disease. You seem happy to boast that you're preventing more deaths from COVID-19, but when will you be publishing figures of the number of people who have died from other diseases because of the restrictions you've put on our NHS?