Radiotherapy delays grow

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

Radiotherapy delays for cancer patients are breaching medical guidelines again as hospitals struggle to retain staff and ageing Machinery breaks down.

At the Auckland Hospital cancer centre, one of six nationwide, "routine" patients are being forced to wait on average six or seven weeks to start radiotherapy. This list contained 87 patients on Tuesday.

National guidelines state that this priority C group, mainly those with early prostate cancer and post-surgery breast cancer patients, should wait a maximum of four weeks.

Health Ministry statistics show that the delays are even worse at other cancer centres, especially at Wellington and Christchurch hospitals.

Those at Waikato Hospital also face significant delays, although the management said yesterday that waits were now much shorter than in January.

And Auckland Hospital says its delays for starting chemotherapy, which reached six weeks for some in August, have reduced markedly.

In 2001, the radiotherapy wait reached 22 weeks for some at Auckland Hospital. Full-mastectomy rates rose temporarily as women chose more extensive surgery rather than risk cancer recurrence through a long radiotherapy wait.

Many centres were losing staff to higher-paid jobs overseas. In a bid to stop this, many therapists last year were given rises of up to 25 per cent.

To deal with the delays and a 6 per cent annual rise in patient numbers, the Government has paid for some patients to go to Australia for treatment (36 in the 11 months to June), increased the number of trainee therapists and bought new radiation machinery.

Cancer Society medical director Dr Peter Dady, an oncologist at Wellington Hospital, said yesterday that its priority C patients now waited up to 15 weeks to start radiotherapy, compared with 12 weeks several months ago. "It is completely unacceptable."

One of its two linear accelerator machines had broken down, but had been repaired, and several therapists had left, some to go abroad, he said.

Auckland District Health Board papers say delayed replacement of Auckland Hospital's ageing machines only worsens therapy waiting times.

Two linear accelerators and another machine used mainly for skin cancer have broken down in the past three months. Two have been fixed, but one of the linear accelerators will probably be out of action for a further month. A sixth will be installed by next June, at a cost of about $3.5 million.

The hospital also has only 41 of the 49 fulltime-equivalent radiation therapists it needs.

Auckland Hospital medical leader Dr John Childs said some patients were being treated in the evening, but even this was too little to control the growing delays.

Like the other centres, Auckland is pinning its hopes largely on the trainees who will graduate in November. "There's also quite an aggressive international recruitment campaign going on," Dr Childs said.

The radiation therapists' union national secretary, Dr Deborah Powell, said the pay rises had reduced but not stopped staff losses overseas. New Zealand therapists were still paid less than those in Australia, Canada and Britain although the gap had narrowed.

Collective agreements at most centres expire in December.

Dr Powell said ways needed to be found to retain graduates and she hoped this could be done without industrial action.