Guy Hingston, who contacted the Otago Daily Times after reading some of the recent articles on colonoscopy services, has also contacted the Ministry of Health to share his view that colonoscopy services would soon improve if there was a waiting list of people who had a positive initial screening test.
He was concerned that although there had been evidence since 1993 that screening saved lives, and other countries such as the United States the United Kingdom and Australia had all introduced screening programmes, New Zealand's was still to get off the ground.
If he were referred a patient with a positive faecal occult blood test (FOBT), in Australia he was medico-legally obliged to do the colonoscopy within 30 days.
The hospital's management team and his other colleagues understood this and created extra time or moved lists around to accommodate this extra demand.
Dr Hingston, who works on the North Coast of New South Wales, in public and private practice, said seven specialists were performing colonoscopies for a population of just under 100,000.
About 1500 were done in public and 2000 in private annually. (In Otago, which is short of 1.5 gastroenterologists, 557 colonoscopies were carried out last calendar year in Dunedin Hospital with a further 348 done at the private Mercy Hospital.
At present, five specialists carry out colonoscopies in the public hospital as part of their duties.)Questioned about whether it would be ethical to introduce a screening programme when the existing system could not cope with symptomatic patients now, Dr Hingston said he considered it was more unethical not to screen people at all when it was known screening programmes saved lives.
He had discovered that the more information there was about the state of someone's health the better their outcome would be.
Some of the people with a positive FOBT would seek private treatment if they found themselves stuck on a public waiting list.
One of the difficulties with bowel cancer awareness was the hidden nature of the illness - " hidden in more ways than one".
As a society there seemed to be acceptance of the high death rate from bowel cancer - more than 1100 people a year in New Zealand - but if that many people died in road accidents there would be an uproar.
"If you put them in a room together at the same time, people would take notice."
Dr Hingston said he accepted that the test used for screening, a faecal occult blood test, could throw up many false positives which was not ideal.
"I compare it to gambling. People spend money on Lotto never knowing if they are going to win any money, yet a lot don't spend money on their own health care - not realising that they may win 10, 20, 30 or even 40 years more of life if they 'gamble' on screening for cancer."
He also did not believe that having to take faecal samples was off-putting.
Everybody was familiar with wiping their bottom and the test kits were easily used at home and then posted to a laboratory for testing.
Dr Hingston backs the campaign in Australia to have the screening programme extended there.
He recommends a two-yearly FOBT for people from the age of 48 up to 75.
Those with increased risk according to international guidelines should have earlier and more frequent FOBT and colonoscopy determined by their degree of risk, he said.
Australian screening programme
• Began in 2006.
• Offers free faecal occult blood testing (FOBT) to people turning 50, 55 and 65.
• Kits for taking faecal samples are sent to participants who mail the samples to a laboratory where they are tested for blood.
• In May, the Australian Government had to recall 475,000 screening kits because of concerns about their reliability. Those people involved with the faulty kits are being invited to take another test.
• A campaign called "Get Behind Bowel Screening" is trying to pressure the Government to extend screening so it offers two-yearly FOBT to people every two years from the age of 50, beginning in 2012.
• In Australia about 80 people die each week from bowel cancer.
• The Australian programme says early detection of bowel cancer through screening has the potential to prevent as many as 2000 deaths every year there.
The New Zealand situation:
• About 23 people a week die from bowel cancer ( 2005 figures).
• Planning is not yet complete for the national programme, announced in May last year, and funding has still to be confirmed.
• Estimates of how many lives could be saved in any New Zealand programme would be affected by the breadth of the programme and its uptake. The Ministry of Health has previously said it could save up to 100 lives a year, reducing the death rate from the disease by up to 15%.