Emotion was palpable on Monday 3 October in the Chamber of Deputies. Petition n°2232, which asked to increase the capacity of the existing paediatric oncology service in Luxembourg, and which had attracted 5,056 valid signatures, was at the heart of a public debate. The petitioner, Julia Dauphinee, a Canadian living in Luxembourg since 2015, recounted the experience she and her husband had with their little daughter Caroline's illness in 2018. "When she was only 20 months old, she was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she had to undergo her chemotherapy at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Paris, as the CHL's Kannerklinik is not equipped for such treatment."
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Although Caroline is now five years old, has become a big sister and has been in remission since March 2020, "the many trips to Paris and being alone there made her very tired, and I thought that something had to be done for all the families that would be affected one day in Luxembourg. Follow-up appointments are made at the CHL, and the teams know us, and that's what we need to create with a reinforced paediatric oncology department so that we can carry out the treatments here. At one point, Caroline couldn't eat anything but ice cream. The nurse called Luxlait and 20 pots of ice cream were sent for her, the teams here are really amazing," said Dauphinee.
Moving quickly on the case
At her side in the Chamber of Deputies on Monday were Noah Waxweiler and his mum. In 2018 at the age of 14, Noah was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia, a rare blood disease that severely damages his immune system. The young boy was treated in Brussels and Hamburg, among other places, due to a lack of care in Luxembourg. "To avoid the risk of infection, patients must be isolated to receive their treatment, which is currently difficult to do at the Kannerklinik,” explained Cathy Scholtes, a paediatrician specialising in child cancer at the CHL.
The interventions of the various members of the Committee on Petitions and Health, present during the public debate, were in line with this. "The fact that sick children and their families have to travel several hundred kilometres, when they are already tired from the disease and their treatment, is a huge problem, and solutions must be found to ensure that the treatments are carried out on our territory,” said (Pirate Party).
Health minister (LSAP), who wiped away a few tears during the testimonies of the petitioners, said that "an audit is planned as part of the follow-up to the National Cancer Plan, with our partners, such as the Gustave Roussy Institute or the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels". The MPs and Lenert agreed that capacity should be strengthened while considering international standards for nurses and specialists in the field. "The deputies stressed that the ministry should move quickly on this issue," the Chamber added.
This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.