Prostate patients fill planes to Australia

By MARTIN JOHNSTON, health reporter

Significant numbers of men with prostate cancer are going to Australia for radiation therapy.

A fifth of the patients who have taken the Australian option since December are men. The rest are women being treated following breast cancer surgery.

More than 100 patients, mainly from Auckland City Hospital, have crossed the Tasman for treatment since December or are lined up to go before July.

The Government has relied on private Australian hospitals to treat more than 200 New Zealand patients since 2000 because of unacceptable delays caused by shortages of staff, mainly radiation therapists.

Many "routine" patients at Auckland face waits of up to 14 weeks to start radiation therapy. Four weeks is the maximum acceptable delay under national guidelines.

The hospital's medical leader, Dr John Childs, said that previously when it sent patients to Australia, hardly any men went.

He could not account for the increase and thought it was a coincidence.

"I get a sense that more people are willingly taking up the Australian option ... whereas before, it was more of a challenge to everyone.

"Sending patients to Australia was never intended to be a long-term solution."

Dr Childs said his hospital had only 40 of the 50 radiation therapists it needed.

It was also short of two of the 11 radiation oncologists needed, but this was a minor factor in the delays.

New ones were due within several months - as were at least three therapists - and a trainee oncologist was filling one of the vacant specialist positions in the meantime.

Treatment delays shrank after radiation therapists won big pay rises in 2002, but started increasing again last year.

"For 18 months we had no significant delays. We were up to full establishment [for staff]," Dr Childs said.

"There was a lot of recruitment for people overseas. Some of those have left to go back home and some of the local people have moved on to work elsewhere and do other things.

"We still compete with an international market where there are shortages."

The Government nearly doubled the number of therapist trainee places to around 30 a year in 2001, but Dr Childs said the first of the extra trainees would not graduate until the end of this year.

Cancer Society medical director Peter Dady, a Wellington Hospital oncologist, said it was particularly worrying that Auckland's delays were so high early in the year. They tended to be lower at this time because of the employment of new graduates.

Wellington's delay for many routine patients hit 17 weeks last year after the loss of four therapists overseas, but was now down to about eight weeks.

Radiation therapists' union secretary Deborah Powell said the number of graduates passing their final exams dropped markedly last year because tutors were burning out and leaving under the pressure of increased student numbers.

Talks with health boards for a national radiation therapists' employment contract were making progress, but slowly, she said.

They were focused on strategies to retain therapists, like employer-subsidised superannuation and a national career path.

Flying to the doctors

* More than 200 patients have been treated in Australia since 2000 because of unacceptable delays caused by shortages of staff, mainly radiation therapists.

* It costs taxpayers about $15,000 a patient for treatment, accommodation and transport for the patient and a support person.

* Most of the patients - 80 per cent - are women being treated following breast cancer surgery.