KEY POINTS:
Despite waiting three months for radiotherapy - and then having to fly to Australia for the treatment - breast cancer patient Phiona Wilson speaks highly of her care.
The Whangarei employment coach was one of 30 cancer patients sent to Sydney before Christmas for treatment the Auckland District Health Board could not provide in time.
By the end of this month, the board will have sent 89 patients to Australia for treatment in a bid to reduce waiting lists which, at 12 weeks, are now three times what is recommended.
The move has drawn criticism - including from some of the women sent over - that it was unnecessarily traumatic to be getting treatment in another country.
Other patients were not able to have spouses accompany them for the month-long treatment.
Some women also claimed to have lost jobs they would have been able to keep had they received treatment in New Zealand.
One patient, who asked not to be named, said patients were treated differently, with some getting their full costs repaid, while others were only partially reimbursed.
The health board spent more than $1.1 million for 57 women to receive radiotherapy in Australia between November and January this year - $658,000 more than if the women had been treated here.
The hospital pays for the patient's treatment, and flights and accommodation for the patient and one support person. Some costs are reimbursed but not health or travel insurance, or daily expenses such as groceries.
The board's Cancer and Blood Service medical director, Margaret Wilsher, said patients were told that, and had the right to decline without disadvantaging their position on the waiting list for treatment in New Zealand.
She said it would be wrong not to not offer patients the Australia option. "And if we did not have patients taking up this opportunity, waiting lists would be longer than they are today."
Mrs Wilson feels she got the best of care, despite delays. She had a lumpectomy done privately in August, but her follow-up radiotherapy, which was supposed to be administered four weeks after her surgery, did not happen.
She said after five weeks she got to the stage that she wanted to ring the oncologist but did not want to annoy him.
"You think he's your saviour," she said. "After 5 1/2 weeks, my husband said, 'this isn't good enough, ring'."
She did and found that she wasn't even on the list.
"That bit was a bit frightening because you think, "oh gosh, you've got to have this radiation to get rid of anything that's left lurking'."
It was about eight weeks later that she was told she might be sent elsewhere for treatment.
"And then out of the blue a week or so later came the phone call from Auckland Hospital."
She received about a week's notice, but was not told exactly when she'd be flying out.
"They didn't tell me, but said that it would be within a week or something. As it turned out it was the following Sunday, about nine days away.
"Because I had an up-to-date passport, I could say 'yes' straight away."
She flew over on November 5 with her husband Dennis.
Some of the other patients did not have a support people with them.
"I am happy with the treatment I've had," Wilson said. "I can't speak highly enough of my surgeon.
"There was Mickey Mouse stuff, and people were saying things like, 'oh, it was because the radiotherapists were on strike' and that's a lie. They weren't. At that stage they weren't.
"I know there were a couple of people who didn't want to leave New Zealand, and leave their families," Mrs Wilson said.
"I couldn't get to Australia quick enough, because to me, I just wanted it done."
