Less educated people face higher cancer death rates

In Finland, the people with only basic education die of cancer more often than those with high level education, according to the statistics published by the Finnish Cancer Society on Thursday.

Generally, cancer treatment in Finland is of high quality and available on an equal basis to everyone at nominal cost, but people with less education get often diagnosed fairly late and thus their actual treatment begins at a time when cancer has already spread.

The Finnish Cancer Society demanded on Thursday that equality in basic healthcare should be improved and thus early diagnose assured to everyone.

In the basically educated group, there were around 300 cancer deaths per 100,000 people in 2015, the figure among those with high education was under 100 per 100,000 persons, the statistics showed.

While all cancer deaths have declined since the 1970s, the relative gap between those with basic education and those with academic education has roughly tripled.

Specialist care is given equally to the whole population in Finland, but basic health care for different groups varies.

One million and seven hundred thousand Finns are entitled to free employment based health care which often offers access to a doctor on the same day of calling.

However, in the public health centers, patients may wait for several weeks before being treated, in most cases have to pay a fee. The legal limit for the waiting time is up to three months.

Juha Heino, a director at the Finnish Cancer Registry maintained by the cancer society, told national broadcaster Yle that the key way to increase equality in health care and assure early treatment would be to improve the basic health care and to enforce strictly shorter maximum waiting times.

This would help bridge the gap in terms of cancer death rate between various social groups.