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Cancer patients of Auckland District Health Board are again being sent to Australia for treatment, because the region's radiation therapy waiting times have blown out.
Six have agreed to cross the Ditch for treatment and 11 will go to Waikato Hospital.
The now-usual mix of staff shortages and machinery failures is behind the latest episode of the decade-old problem - plus a big increase in patients needing immediate treatment. The new twist is that while New Zealand's first private radiation therapy clinic may be contributing to the difficulties, it could also help to solve them.
Auckland Radiation Oncology plans to open its Epsom clinic in November.
The health board said yesterday that five of its radiation therapists had been hired by the private clinic and this had contributed to the worsening delays.
The board said waiting times for "low acuity" patients had been four to six weeks for the past year, but were now at least 12 weeks.
Susan - she asked for her real name to be withheld - is one such patient. A 55-year-old who had a partial mastectomy on July 1, she was booked to start radiation therapy this Friday. That would have been just short of eight weeks from when her specialist recommended the treatment.
But last Friday a board official rang to postpone the appointment without stating a new date, and to ask if Susan could go to Waikato Hospital for the 20 doses of radiation.
But she works fulltime and could not spend four weeks in Hamilton at such short notice. Now she is starting to worry about risks from the delay.
"I live in a big city with a big hospital. I expect I should be able to have my treatment in the largest city in New Zealand. There's something wrong when people have to be sent elsewhere to smaller cities or to Australia."
The Health Ministry in 2001 said the maximum wait for "priority C" patients like Susan should be four weeks. Last year it changed this to a target of less than eight weeks.
The board's clinical director of radiation oncology, Dr Andrew Macann, said some therapists had left for personal reasons, such as going overseas. It had hired five since March, but the overall losses, including those to the private clinic, had made it more difficult to meet the suddenly increased need for treatment.
The board would consider contracting the private clinic to treat patients from the public sector.
National Party health spokesman Tony Ryall said health boards were taking extreme measures to provide what should be basic health services.
"These long waiting lists for cancer treatment are a disgrace, and they cause untold stress on families already trying to survive cancer."
Auckland Radiation Oncology's chairman, Andrew Wong, said the treatment delays could not be blamed on it, since only three of the five therapists from the Auckland DHB had started their new jobs. They started yesterday.
The private clinic had not targeted Auckland DHB. It had run advertisements in Australia and New Zealand. A senior therapist in a teaching role at Waikato DHB had been hired, and a medical radiation physicist from Queensland.
"Once we start treating patients we will be actively reducing the waiting list for ADHB."
