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Cancer survivors will have added support once the new Bendigo Hospital opens.
The Cancer Survivorship Service will provide care plans to help patients in the next stage of their lives.
“Cancer survivors need ongoing support for a whole range of reasons,” Member for Bendigo West Maree Edwards said.
“The cancer journey is very difficult, it’s very disruptive, but once you’ve survived cancer that’s not necessarily the end of the journey.”
She said oncologists and nurse practitioners would screen and assess survivors to create a survivorship care plan.
Plans could involve shared care arrangements or referrals to appropriate community-based services.
The Cancer Survivorship Service will be managed by the Loddon Mallee Integrated Cancer Service, the region’s clinical cancer network.
The project has backing from state government’s Better Care Victoria Innovation Fund.
Its announcement came during a tour of the Bendigo Cancer Centre, which is due to open in January.
Centre director Leanne Anderson, Bendigo Health board chairman Bob Cameron, and Bendigo Radiotherapy Centre clinical director Solveig Grenfell joined Ms Edwards at the new hospital on Friday.
Together, they toured one of the hospital’s four radiotherapy bunkers.
The new hospital will open with two bunkers operational, each containing a new linear accelerator.
A short walk down the hall took the tour to the area where 15 chemotherapy chairs will be stationed.
There is space for 26 chairs in future, more than double the number available at Bendigo Health now.
Ms Anderson said the co-location of the Medical Oncology Service and the Bendigo Radiotherapy Centre would be beneficial for patients and their families.
“Also, it gives our clinical staff the opportunity to collaborate, discuss places and plan the best way to treat a patient,” she said.
She said the cancer centre would reduce the need for patients to leave the region for treatment.
“We treat 70 patients a day,” Dr Grenfell said.
Ms Edwards, whose late husband Lindsay died of brain cancer in 2002, said the Bendigo Cancer Centre was amazing.
“We didn’t have this kind of facility when he was ill,” she said.
“Not just for the patient, but for their families, for their carers, it is so important to have all these cancer treatments in one place to eliminate that need to have to go to Melbourne or further afield for specialist treatment.
The Varian Truebeam linear accelerators at the new hospital weren’t available in Bendigo when Lindsay was being treated.
“It would have been fantastic to have access to that type of treatment back then, and I know these linear accelerators are saving lives,” Ms Edwards said.