A proposal to put "airport-style" chairs in the waiting room of the planned $35 million Western Cancer Centre didn't sit well with Dubbo's Rhonda Gleeson.
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"No,no,no," she told designers of the long-awaited facility.
"These people are sick.
"They don't want to sit on airport-style chairs.
"We need to have comfortable chairs."
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Mrs Gleeson, who lost her husband to cancer in 2008, has served as a consumer representative on a cancer centre consultative committee.
The Dubbo Health Council member was on hand last week when Member for the Dubbo electorate Dugald Saunders and NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard announced that Lipman Pty Ltd had been awarded the tender to construct the cancer centre.
When the politicians departed she told of focusing on practical matters and carers as part of her role as a consumer advocate.
"From my own experience,when my husband was having treatment, that was the only time I had to myself," Mrs Gleeson said.
"So we really looked at what we could do for carers at the cancer centre."
Mrs Gleeson said carers would be able to use the wellness centre offering non-medical treatments.
"We looked at how we could set up pods where carers could talk to each other but also provide massage and things like that to give them some support," she said.
The community volunteer admits to being "excited" at the letting of the tender, a precursor to the demolition of Dubbo Hospital's old renal unit where the cancer centre will be built.
The new renal unit in the Talbragar Building will take its first patients about December 10.
"I love the design of it (the cancer centre) and I think it will be a really consumer-friendly place," Mrs Gleeson said.
"We've tried to make whole areas of it, especially the entrances and waiting room, non-clinical."
Mrs Gleeson is passionate about Dubbo and the western region having its own cancer centre.
"My husband died of cancer and I nursed him for 11 months," she said.
"I know what it's like to go backwards and forward, backwards and forward to Sydney for treatment."
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Mrs Gleeson is particularly pleased that the new facility will have a PET scanner and offer radiotherapy as well as chemotherapy.
The cancer centre will get the first PET scanner west of the Blue Mountains.
The federal government is spending $25 million and the state government $10 million on building the cancer cancer.
The demolition of the old renal unit will occur in early 2020.
Construction of the cancer centre will follow.
It will open its doors at a date to be advised in 2021.
