By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter
Hospitals should consider sending more cancer patients to Australia if they cannot treat them quickly enough here, says Health Minister Annette King.
Cancer patients' waiting times for radiation therapy have worsened seriously since June, according to figures obtained from Mrs King by National's health spokesman, Roger Sowry.
By the end of January, the proportion of patients waiting more than four weeks had more than doubled in Hamilton and Palmerston North and nearly trebled, to 60 per cent, in Christchurch.
At Auckland Hospital, the equivalent figure rose from 46 per cent at June 30, to 64 per cent at the end of January.
Four weeks is the maximum recommended waiting time after a decision that treatment is needed.
Mr Sowry said all the people waiting should have the option of going to Australia. He called on the minister to act urgently to relieve the mounting stress they were enduring.
Waikato Hospital has sent 19 patients across the Tasman, at a cost to taxpayers of about $10,000 for each case.
Spokeswoman Karen Bennett said yesterday that the hospital would consider sending more patients if they had to wait too long here and wanted to go.
Cost of treatment was the same. The only "material difference" in the bill arose from the airline flights.
Mrs King said that since the costs were similar, she had no objection to hospitals sending cancer patients to Australia if they had exhausted the local options for treatment.
This year and next had been predicted as bad ones for cancer treatment waiting times in reports from as long ago as 1996, she said, due to the international shortage of radiation therapists, the need for new radiation equipment, and higher patient numbers resulting from an increase in cancer screening.
Cancer Society medical director Dr Peter Dady said low pay was the main reason radiation therapists and radiation oncologists went overseas.
He predicted the waiting times would continue to breach the four-week standard until the pay rates rose. Canada had solved its shortage with a 40 per cent pay rise for radiation therapists.
Auckland Hospital's head of radiation oncology, Dr John Childs, said last night that a recruiting drive to South Africa and Britain last year for radiation therapists had led to inquiries from more than 30 therapists. One would start work in a fortnight and job offers had been made to six others.
The establishment level was 47 or 48 jobs, but only 42 or 43 were filled. The hospital was trying to find a way to pay for a further eight therapists to clear the backlog.
The Radiation Therapists Union's senior advocate, Deborah Sidebotham, said overseas therapists had never stayed long.
Hospitals had agreed to pay rises in recent years, but pay and employment conditions needed to be improved for both trainees and qualified staff. Hospitals were responding more positively to the union's approaches than in the past.
Herald Online Health
Use Australia for cancer care says King
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