New survey and initiatives to support patients living with cancer

ABSTRACT

[...]in Ireland, a new bill, called the Central Bank (Amendment) Bill 2022, was brought before the Seanad (upper house of the national Parliament) on Oct 18, 2022, seeking to make sure that survivors of cancer are not refused access to economic products, such as insurance and mortgage protection, due to their cancer history. According to the Irish Cancer Society, people affected by cancer in Ireland are three times more likely to find it difficult to find insurance and are twice as likely to have difficulty in securing a mortgage compared with those without cancer. Bhatt commented, “The efforts in Ireland to improve access for individuals who have experienced cancer to mortgages and insurance takes an interesting and important step toward looking beyond the proximal need for chemotherapy, antibiotics, surgery, and radiotherapy—and seeks to support how people ‘live’ beyond cancer.”