Wellington cancer patients might go to Australia

Cancer patients from the Wellington region might be flown to Australia for radiation treatment as waiting times at Wellington Hospital grow.

Wellington Hospital radiation oncology head David Lamb said some breast and prostate cancer patients were now waiting 12 weeks for treatment - three times the Government recommended limit.

"These patients are waiting far too long for curative treatment."

Dr Lamb said he and Capital and Coast District Health Board management had been told by the Health Ministry that any patient expected to wait more than six weeks for radiation treatment was eligible to be treated in Australia.

He said staff would offer several patients the option, but the impact on waiting times was not known as many patients would find the offer difficult to take up.

"When you factor in preparing a treatment plan you would be talking about six and a half weeks in Australia ... You might get your treatment a bit quicker, but the disruption to your working life, or your family life if you are a woman with breast cancer who has young children, would just be huge."

Dr Lamb said the lengthening wait times were caused by three vacant radiation therapist positions and an ageing linear accelerator - a machine that fires a focused beam of radiation to destroy tumours.

The $4 million machine, one of two at the hospital, was three years past its recommended use-by date, unusable 13 per cent of the time and needed urgent replacement.

Hospital managers were dragging their heels on replacing the machine, he said. Replacing it would help staff recruitment and retention.

Hospital manager John Coughlan told members of Capital and Coast District Health Board's hospital advisory committee yesterday that other district health boards had indicated they were too busy to take Wellington patients. He said one woman had already been offered treatment in Australia, but he did not say if she had accepted.

A Capital and Coast District Health Board spokeswoman said hospital managers were considering when to purchase a new linear accelerator. One option was buying it in the next financial year.

A second option was holding off the purchase until the cancer centre in the new Wellington regional hospital was completed in 2005.

She said options would be presented to a Capital and Coast District Health Board committee next month and then to the full board in July.

Health Ministry figures show 138 New Zealand women have been sent to Sydney for radiotherapy since December 2001, at a cost of $15,000 each.

- NZPA