All.Can Korea is the first Asian branch of All.Can International, consisting of patient advocacy groups, healthcare professionals, public health policy experts, legal counsellor, and an industry partner, BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Ltd. On 5 December 2020, the launch of All.Can Korea was approved by the All.Can International Board, followed by official announcement through a virtual press conference in Korea on 10 December 2020.
Patient Survey
Prior to its launch, All.Can Korea surveyed 495 cancer patients to assess the psychological, economic, and social difficulties they face during diagnosis, treatment, and post-treatment. The main results of the survey are:
- While the psychological support of cancer patients is essential, the patients themselves lack awareness and are not receiving sufficient support.
- Unbalanced health equity occurs at the start of cancer diagnosis depending on patients’ income. Since low-income bracket become aware of health issues diagnosed at the hospital after experiencing symptoms or discovering advanced stage of cancer, inefficiencies in the early diagnosis and treatment phases indicate greater attention and improvement are required.
- Improvement on policy is required to address the various difficulties of cancer patients
All.Can Korea Slogan & Key Projects
Based on the results of the survey, All.Can Korea selected the following key projects and a matching slogan.
Key projects:
- Campaign for improving awareness on the need for psychological support for cancer patients
- Improvement for the inefficiencies in cancer diagnosis for the low-income bracket
- Further refinement and improvement of the policy and laws which support various patients
Slogan: Living with Cancer Beyond the Treatment, Towards Healthier Days
All.Can Korea Launching Press Conference
A press conference was organised to officially announce the launch of All.Can Korea and to introduce its board members. At the event, the patient survey results and solutions to improve the cancer treatment environment were presented, and plans for 2021 announced.
In total, 35 healthcare journalists from major daily and trade journals attended the event. The outcome was very successful with 29 resultant articles published, including major newswire services, dailies, and business media in Korea.
It was essential to convey All.Can’s philosophy accurately, while overcoming the absence of organization consisted of various stakeholders. All.Can bears unique characteristics of supporting exclusively cancer patients to deliver its philosophy, without involvement in pricing and reimbursement of any cancer drug. The Q&A session of the press conference was followed by questions from journalists inquiring the principle of All.Can Korea to exclude activities related to P&R communication to which All.Can Korea successfully effectively conveyed the significance its intent and vision.
Choi Sung-chul, Representative of All.Can Korea (Representative of Citizen’s Alliance for Cancer Patients) stated: “Cancer patient groups and experts who participated in All.Can Korea are active in many areas for cancer patients, and they are aware that Korea’s environment for combating cancer is not found wanting compared to overseas and more notably, it is continuing its path for improvement. However, what I felt during the survey and discussion was that there are many cancer patients who are still struggling, and there are many things to improve. As same as the All.Can International’s purpose, All.Can Korea will improve various inefficiencies related to cancer to achieve a more efficient, patient-centered environment.”
Professor Jang, Yoon-jung, Head of Division of Cancer Control & Policy, National Cancer Center noted: “With the opinions of various experts and patients on cancer coming together, I participated in All.Can Korea because I thought it was a good place start thinking about the areas of improvement and ways to solve such challenging issues. Of course, it is important to focus only on cancer treatment, but our immediate situation is that we need to prepare and think about new things other than treatment alone and for patients to return to their daily lives. South Korea’s health and wellness experts and the government also consider this as an important issue. There are various issues and needs, and I think we need to fulfill the basic principles of what to prepare first. I look forward to All. Can Korea’s future activities to come.”