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WA Cancer Patients Suffering Because of Political Fight
13 August 2003
The crisis in cancer treatment in Western Australia is being made worse by the political game playing between the Federal and State Governments
With Australia's longest cancer waiting list, the lowest number of trained radiation therapists per head of population, and no local university course to train more radiation therapists, WA cancer patients are already getting a raw deal, the Western Australian branch of the union said today.
The deal is made worse by the Federal - State wrangle over who pays for new vitally needed new equipment, and where that equipment should go. What is needed are two new linear accelerators, these are the machines that radiation therapists use to give treatment to cancer patients. The funding for WA's new linear accelerators is the responsibility of the Federal Health Minister, Kay Patterson.
Health Services Union WA Secretary, Dan Hill says : "Waiting lists have been getting worse over the last couple of years. If Senator Patterson doesn't make a decision soon, WA will have to send cancer patients interstate or overseas for treatment."
The Federal Government wants WA to put one of the new linear accelerators in the South West of the State, and not at the specialist radiation treatment centre at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth.
With no specialist doctors or radiation therapists living in the South West, and severe difficulties in recruiting staff to work in Perth let alone the South West, the Federal Government's decision smacks of pork barrel politics.
"Health Minister, Kay Patterson, has got to stop playing political games with our most seriously ill patients. WA needs the new cancer treatment machines now. They take at least 12 months to set up, so any delay is simply unacceptable." said Mr Hill.
Health Services Union members working at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital are at their wits end. Underpaid, over-worked , and coping with the stress of dealing with desperately ill patients, they are the latest victims of "Patterson's curse", a noxious growth in Canberra that is strangling our health system.
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