The cancer council is calling on the State Government to buy and distribute new machines after determining 51,000 people missed out on adequate radiation treatment in the decade to 2006, collectively costing them “40,000 years of life”.

Dubbo MP Dawn Fardell, currently perturbed about the number of “young women” in Dubbo being diagnosed with breast cancer, has welcomed the push and promised to put her political weight behind it.

The MP is convinced that plans for any new and large hospitals in NSW must include a radiotherapy unit that has special building requirements.

Orange and Dubbo previously went head-to-head to secure a machine with the under-construction new Orange Base Hospital set to be its home from 2011.

But yesterday the cancer council urged the Government to address the “completely unacceptable” situation for cancer sufferers by immediately expanding or completing existing radiotherapy facilities at St George Hospital, Port Macquarie, Orange, Lismore, Coffs Harbour and the Central Coast.

In the longer term, the Government needed to consider machines for Concord, Bankstown, Blacktown, Campbelltown, Nepean, Westmead, Dubbo and Tamworth hospitals, it said.

The council’s chief executive Andrew Penman has suggested that in the interim the Government should fill the radiotherapy gap by lifting financial support for people having to travel long distances for treatment, and pay private hospitals to treat public patients.

“Cancer patients should not have their health and lives placed under threat simply because of lack of planning, management and investment into radiotherapy from the State Government,” he said.

The cancer council says the 42 machines currently in use in NSW need to be boosted to 76 by 2015 to meet an anticipated surge in cancer cases.

Radiotherapy, or radiation therapy, is recommended for about half of all cancer patients, killing malignant cells or inhibiting their progression.

kim.bartley@ruralp ress.com