Dunedin Hospital managers have moved to reassure Otago and Southland cancer patients waiting times for radiation therapy treatment are as good, if not better, than anywhere else in the country.
A Sunday Star Times report that the southern end of the South Island had the worst waiting times in New Zealand would make any patient want to give up in despair and was simply not true, Otago District Health Board oncology and specialist medicine service manager Gary Reed said.
It was reported southern patients only had a 17% chance of receiving radiation therapy within six weeks of seeing a specialist, but 91% of patients were treated within six weeks at the end of October, Mr Reed said.
Every urgent patient was treated within 24 hours.
Cancer patients were often complex from an oncology perspective and there were often other compounding problems which could affect their treatment, he said.
If the hospital discounted patients whose treatment was delayed because they were too ill, were receiving other treatment, or had asked to have it at a later date, then most patients received treatment within about four weeks.
Present ministry guidelines say patients should not wait longer than six weeks for treatment after their first appointment with a specialist.
However, the ministry is working towards lower guidelines which would require urgent patients to be seen within 24 hours and semi-urgent patients within either two or four weeks.
If those yet-to-be-introduced guidelines had been used in August, only 17% of Otago and Southland patients would have met them.
However, in August, only one patient had delayed treatment because of hospital constraints. The other delays were due to patient complications or requests.
August and September treatment rates at Dunedin Hospital were affected by the installation of a new multi-million dollar linear accellerator, and then another linear accellerator was upgraded. Even then, 70% of patients were treated within six weeks during August and 81% during September.
The Southern Blood and Cancer Service, which served Otago and Southland, had made dramatic improvements in waiting times for patients, Mr Reed said.
Eighteen months ago, patients were waiting up to 40 days to get their first appointment with a specialist, but now the average wait in Otago was eight days and Southland patients had no wait.
The ministry requirement was 28 days.
"I would suspect Otago and Southland patients are among the best-served in New Zealand in terms of access to a radiation oncologist and wait times for treatment delivery."
