Editorial: Bay cancer fighters get overdue lift

During winter I often cringe at the idea of taking on the Kaimai Range in my trusty 1990s Mitsubishi Mirage.

But the prospect of seeing my family on the other side spurs me on and it's always worth the fog and frighteningly tight corners when I get there.

I can't imagine how it feels to make that drive feeling the ravaging effects of cancer and knowing you are bound for the unfamiliar vastness of Waikato Hospital. The journey must seem longer, the trucks slower and the arrival at your destination bitter-sweet.

For this reason I was pleased to hear Tauranga will have its own $32 million radiotherapy centre by the middle of next year.

By the end of 2014, patients won't have to face the Kaimais before they face their treatment.

While no one wants to think themselves, or their loved ones, will ever need such a community asset, cancer statistics suggest not many extended Kiwi families are spared.

I know I would rather receive life-saving treatment in the familiarity of my home town hospital, where a winding road over a mountain range doesn't separate me from home.

About 500 Bay of Plenty patients receive radiotherapy each year, most opting to travel to Hamilton - the nearest centre offering radiotherapy treatment before Auckland.

If anything, this resource is long overdue in Tauranga - the country's fifth largest city - with a large ageing population.

I was also impressed the centre would be the country's first to use solar power. Harnessing natural energy to help fight disease has a good feeling about it, as does the amount of money it will save.

And in one of the country's sunniest regions it makes sense.

News of the centre was also a welcome sequel to the 2008 opening of the Bay of Plenty Cancer Centre at Tauranga Hospital.

The fundraising campaign for the centre, Project Hope, was championed by Tauranga cancer patient Len Gilbert, who bravely shared his journey through the Bay of Plenty Times.

If the opening of the radiotherapy centre makes the cancer fight one step easier for Western Bay residents and their families then the decision to invest in it will be well worthwhile.