A NEW PILOT scheme which involves volunteer drivers recruited by the Irish Cancer Society taking cancer patients to and from appointments at a Dublin hospital is likely to be rolled out nationally once it has been evaluated.
The scheme, launched yesterday, already has 111 volunteer drivers and since they began work three weeks ago, 15 cancer patients have been taken by the volunteers in their own time and in their own vehicles to and from St Vincent’s Hospital. The patients are using the scheme, modelled on a similar initiative in Canada, to travel to the hospital from as far away as Wexford.
Prof Tom Keane, the director of the State’s new cancer control programme, said he had no doubt the initiative would be a huge success in Ireland as it has been in Canada.
He said one of the hidden benefits of the scheme in Canada was that many of the drivers were former cancer patients and the patients travelling with them actually looked forward to the drive, talking to someone who had been through a cancer journey and recovered.
One of the volunteer drivers for the Irish scheme is Vera Walkin from Blackrock in Dublin. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 and has made a fantastic recovery. Her motivation for getting involved was seeing the transport difficulties for other patients from the west who underwent chemotherapy alongside her a few years ago.
Prof Keane said he hoped if the scheme was rolled out nationally, it would go some way towards allaying the fears of patients around travel to the eight new designated cancer centres.
“I don’t think patients will ever be totally happy with having to travel but this will minimise the inconvenience and make it more palatable,” he said.
He also pointed out that even with the volunteer driver scheme, other modes of transport were still likely to be used to take cancer patients to hospital. Many patients in the northwest are bussed to Dublin for treatment at present and Prof Keane said buses would still be required into the future.
“No one system on its own is going to fulfil all the need. The bus services are used in the Canadian system as well,” he stressed.
They were typically used in Canada for a group of patients all going to the same place at a fixed time every day for radiation treatment. “But for many patients that may not necessarily be optimal. So this is one of many transportation arrangements that I think we’ll look at and I’m going to be leaving it up to the local co-ordinators to decide what will work best for individual patients,” he said.