The new Kimiora Infusion Unit at Whanganui Hospital is opening its doors today. Photo / Bevan Conley
The new Kimiora Infusion Unit at Whanganui Hospital is opening its doors today. Photo / Bevan Conley
Whanganui Hospital’s new chemotherapy unit has been officially opened and will take its first patients next month.
The Kimiora Infusion Unit will take 10 patients per day with foldout couches and beds available for comfortable treatment.
It will provide a range of infusions not specific to chemotherapy such as blood products, rheumatology treatment or infusions for other chronic conditions.
Between seven and 10 Whanganui patients per week, whose cancer is deemed low risk, will no longer have to travel to Palmerston North for their chemotherapy treatment.
However, some patients with more complex cancers or specific chemotherapy regimes will have to continue making the trip.
Three specialists from Palmerston North Hospital will travel regularly to Whanganui to staff the unit as part of the Regional Cancer Treatment Service (RCTS).
Whanganui Hospital staff members are going to be trained to provide infusion services in the future.
The number of patients being seen at the unit is expected to increase throughout next year.
The difference it would make to those patients to not have to travel was brilliant, Te Whatu Ora acting group director of operations Katherine Fraser-Chapple said.
“As the service is embedded we will expand the treatments that are available to have here.”
Government funding of $800,000 was first secured for the unit in February 2020, as part of $300 million of capital investment in the then district health boards.
Fraser-Chapple said Whanganui families would now be able to come and sit with their family member whilst they were having chemotherapy treatment.
Well-known local businessman Robert Bartley advocated for the setting up of a chemotherapy unit in Whanganui. He brought the initial idea to former Whanganui Hospital chief executive Russel Simpson.
“Dad would have been so happy if he could have been here today to see it." Photo / Bevan Conley
Bartley died from a long battle with cancer in 2021, but his photo is now hanging on the wall of the Kimiora unit.
“Dad would have been so happy if he could have been here today to see it,” his daughter Sarah Bartley said.
She said travelling for chemotherapy could be a real financial and emotional burden for patients.
“It’s already such a difficult time for people going for treatment and their families, it just takes that pressure off.”
Ann Bartley said her husband saw what people were going through to get chemotherapy and knew “there must be a better way”.
