Childhood Cancer Care

POGO seeks to ensure that each child with cancer in this province has equal access to the most current care and that the full range of needs of these children, their families and caregivers are met.

In 1988 and in 1994, POGO delivered comprehensive reports to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) on available and missing childhood cancer services. In these reports and through the strenuous schedule of work that followed, POGO systematically identified gaps in service; new approaches to treatment; efficiencies to be realized; serious understaffing; areas in critical need of strategic investment; and new ways of delivering service.

The result is a strong partnership with Ontario ’s MOHLTC and the childhood cancer community, and major steps towards a coordinated, well-integrated, province-wide system of care, directed and delivered by affiliated, hospital-based programs which are in regular contact with each other.

Today, Ontario has a childhood cancer system founded on state-of-the-art practice guidelines and significant new MOHLTC funding. The province-wide network is the result of a sustained and determined collaboration of professionals working with parents and survivors, and the help and support of successive governments led by each of the major political parties.