Health: 1)Hope emerges as new pill targets deadly pancreatic cancer; 2)Barrie ER wait times climb as new report warns Ontario health system is ‘struggling to keep up’; 3)Wind Phone installation at Clearview EcoPark in Stayner, a disconnected phone used for reflection and grief support

1)Hope emerges as new pill targets deadly pancreatic cancer

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Staff, June 1, 2026

A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported Sunday, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer. “While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study.

The drug is called daraxonrasib, and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumour growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases — a target that had eluded treatment for decades.

Study Results Show Significant Survival Improvement

The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had quit responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented Sunday at the American Society for Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

Those taking daraxonrasib lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. While that may seem like a small improvement, Wainberg said it marked the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy.

“Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying” when first seeing the study results, Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved with the research, said from the ASCO meeting. She was struck by how “patients stayed on this treatment because it was providing durable and meaningful benefit to them.”

The pills’ effects eventually wane, but recipients used them for significantly longer than the comparison group stayed on chemotherapy, reporting less pain and a better quality of life as their tumours shrank. Many still were using the drug after the data was analyzed, which Wainberg said means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue tracking them.

Potential to Become a New Standard of Care

Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presented the findings on Sunday. He said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumour shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery.

Side effects most likely to affect pill usage were a rash that can be severe and mouth sores, he said.

Maker Revolution Medicines funded the study, and the Food and Drug Administration plans to expedite review of the drug. Meanwhile, the agency is allowing what’s called “expanded access” to the experimental drug for patients who meet certain criteria. The drug garnered public attention when former U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse described on “60 Minutes” how he’s had less pain while taking it. Oncologists are being flooded with requests as the special access program gets started.

Why Pancreatic Cancer Is So Difficult to Treat

Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly forms in large part because it’s hard to detect before it starts spreading to other organs. The American Cancer Society estimates about 67,000 new cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. this year and more than 52,000 people will die from the disease. The five-year overall survival rate is 13%.

Unlike with other cancers that have benefitted from a variety of chemotherapy alternatives, pancreatic cancer has been harder to tackle.

Cancer specialists not involved in the new research expressed optimism that this may be a turning point in the quest for new options, with dozens of experimental drugs in development.

How the Drug Works and What’s Next

The new drug targets mutations in the RAS gene family that normally regulate cell growth. So-called KRAS mutations are especially critical in fueling pancreatic cancer. But a structure that made it hard for drugs to stick to the mutated proteins meant this cancer driver was long considered “undruggable.”

Revolution Medicines’ drug uses what’s essentially a molecular glue to bind with multiple KRAS subtypes. Wainberg said researchers will next probe whether the drug worked better in certain of those subtypes.

The drug will change pancreatic cancer treatment, said Dr. Andrew Coveler of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved in the research.

“This thing works drastically differently,” he said.

Wainberg said other drugs in development target specific KRAS subtypes. Other approaches in earlier stages of testing include vaccines designed to prevent recurrence after pancreatic cancer surgery by teaching the immune system to recognize the mutated protein.

with files from The Associated Press

2)Barrie ER wait times climb as new report warns Ontario health system is ‘struggling to keep up’

Courtsey Barrie360.com

By Ian MacLennan, May 29, 2026

A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says emergency departments with long wait times and overcrowding signal that the overall healthcare system is struggling to keep up with patient demand for care.

“Emergency departments with long wait times are a canary in the coal mine for the health system performance,” said Andrew Longhurst, author of the report and CCPA senior researcher, at a recent news conference in Barrie.

Citing provincial data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the report says Ontario emergency department indicators are moving in the wrong direction.

“The emergency department wait time for patients to receive an initial physician assessment has significantly increased over the last five years,” Longhurst explained.

The maximum wait for 90 per cent of patients was 2.7 hours in 2021, and that increased to 4.5 hours in 2024-25, an increase of 67 per cent.

Longhurst says the wait time for ER patients to be admitted into an inpatient bed has also increased over the last five years.

In this region, the hospitals included were Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) in Barrie, Orillia Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital, and Georgian Bay General Hospital in Midland.

Source: Centre for Policy Alternatives

“So the title of this study, Failure, By Design, is really drawing attention to the fact that there is a situation of underfunding that is creating these conditions and shrinking the size of the hospital system,” Longhurst said.

According to Longhurst, the provincial government has said it will provide up to four per cent in targeted and base funding to the hospital sector.

“We know that falls short of the six per cent annually that is required.”

He says the six per cent figure comes from the Ontario Hospital Association, which Longhurst says is telling the provincial government that four per cent is inadequate to address cost pressures, including aging, population growth, utilization, and inflation.

The report lists several recommendations, including that the province provide the hospital sector with an additional $3.2 billion of funding to stabilize hospital finances across Ontario.

“And that’s just to maintain service levels from 2025,” Longhurst noted. “If we’re talking about expanding beds and expanding staffing levels beyond that, it would be above that, but that $3.2 billion is a conservative estimate of what is required to just stabilize hospital finances in the province.”

The report calls on the government to move quickly on a provincial health workforce strategy.

“One of the big things we’re seeing is the fact that when you have a system that is unable to cope with the demand for care, it creates a lot of moral distress in frontline healthcare workers, and that leads to challenges with retention.”

Sharon Richer, secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, the hospital division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, says frontline workers are seeing their work devastated by underfunding and cuts, particularly within the public healthcare system.

“Many of our workers who go to work every single day often are being asked to do more and more and more because of the underfunding that these hospitals have. Jobs haven’t been replaced. They’ve been eliminated because the hospitals don’t have the funds.

Richer said it’s putting pressure on them, but also on the patients that they’re trying to care for.

“You can imagine if you’re sitting on a stretcher on the emergency department for 15 hours–I don’t know if anybody’s laid on a stretcher for 15 hours, it’s the most uncomfortable thing.”

Over the last three years, hospitals in Barrie and Orillia have been in a surplus situation, while Midland has run a deficit, the most recent in 2024-25, was $ 3.6 million, according to Longhurst.

He noted that 55 per cent of Ontario hospitals were in the red in 2024-25, and new data suggests the number will increase to 70 per cent by the end of the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Barrie 360 reached out to RVH last month, before the public release of the report by the CCPA, asking about the budget situation at the hospital.

“The expectation from the government is always for hospitals to balance their budgets each year. This has become increasingly challenging given the mounting financial pressures that come with population growth, more complex patient conditions, and rising supply and labour costs,” said Gail Hunt, RVH president and CEO, in an email to Barrie 360 on April 28. “We continue to work within the funding framework set by the province. We are focused on maintaining safe, high-quality care for our patients. As we look at measures to improve efficiency, minimizing any impact on patents and care delivery remains our priority.”

Barrie 360 reached out to the office of Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones for comment on the CCP report, but did not receive a response.

Wind Phone installation at Clearview EcoPark in Stayner aims to support grief and healing

Courtesy Barrie360.com

By Ian MacLennan, June 3, 2026

3)Wind Phone installation at Clearview EcoPark in Stayner, a disconnected phone used for reflection and grief support

The Hospice Georgian Triangle Foundation (HGTF) in partnership with Clearview Township, recently celebrated the installation of a wind phone at the Clearview EcoPark in Stayner.

“A wind phone is a disconnected phone that is set in a nature location, and people typically use a wind phone to connect with loved ones who have died,” explained Vanessa Boorberg, interim Community Support Lead at Hospice Georgian Triangle (HGT).

She explains that wind phones first came out in 2010 when a person in Japan created one to connect with their cousin who had died and he put it in his backyard. It was moved to a public space after the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in 2011, which allowed mourners from across the country came to speak and connect with their love ones.

Boorberg believes the wind phone is an extension of the services provided by HGT.

“I think it’s such an important part of our work because wind phones are symbolic of how we want to create more grief care spaces in the community and compassionate care spaces in the community. We know that sometimes in our communities we’re a little bit scared of death and a little bit scared of grief, so it’s how can we create more space for people to receive care both independently and in connection with others.”

At the wind phone, the public will find information about Hospice Georgian Triangle’s grief and bereavement services and other programs.

Boorberg says part of grief work is to give people space to express their grief publicly and privately, and the wind phone is an extension of that.

“I think people can go out (to the wind phone) whenever it feels comfortable to them. I also know occasionally people will set up a wind phone on their own property. I think a wind phone is a beautiful symbol, and very tangible for people.”

Boorberg encourages people who make use of the wind phone and are looking for grief and bereavement support to contact HGT.

“That can be a hard call or email to send, and also, it’s a real act of courage.”

HGT operates Campbell House in Collingwood, a 10-bed residential hospice for end-of-life care and short-term palliative care servicing in South Georgian Bay, including Collingwood, Blue Mountains, Wasaga Beach and Clearview Township.

HGTF is the fundraising arm of the organization.