Nurse-led Bay of Islands Chemotherapy Infusion Unit saves hours of travel

Now that Lyndsay Kitto can have his chemotherapy infusion treatment at Bay of Islands Hospital, the travel time and cost for him and his wife are more than halved.

A nurse-led chemotherapy infusion unit opened last week at Bay of Islands Hospital. The unit will operate up to two days a week initially.

With 22 percent of our population living in the Mid North, this will allow some of these patients to receive their cancer therapy locally, reducing the need for long, stressful travel to Whangārei.

Lyndsay, a Bay of Islands local who has worked outside most of his life, is currently on his seventeenth treatment in his cancer journey. He says that being able to travel less for appointments has made a big difference to their lives.   

"We live in Russell, and the drive to Whangārei and back was hard. My wife cannot drive, so I'd have to drive us home after treatment, and all you want to do afterwards is go home and have a snooze," Lyndsay said.   

"It is so much easier for us to travel over from Russell on the roads."  

Lorna Smeath, Bay of Islands Hospital's outpatient department clinical nurse manager, who has been in outreach for thirty years, said that any service that comes into communities is positive, saves people travelling and the expense involved in receiving treatments.   

"This is so good for the people in the north," she said.  

Treating patients closer to home allows for more quality time with whānau and reduces stress and expenses associated with travelling out of their community for treatment.   

"Over time, we hope to continue to develop further services for delivering cancer care at community-facing centres, keeping our people and their whānau needs at the core of what we do," said Dr Vincent Newton, Oncology Service Clinical Director.  

"The Bay of Island unit adds to the delivery of care we have been providing at Kaitaia since 2017." 

Jen Thomas, Bay of Islands Hospital operations manager, wanted to acknowledge the teams at Jim Carney Cancer Treatment Centre and Bay of Islands Hospital that have helped establish this much-needed service.

"Our staff are dedicated to bringing patient and whānau-centric cancer care closer to home because they understand that cancer treatment is both physically and emotionally challenging and travel adds to the burden of this."

For Lyndsay, the day couldn't have turned out any better.

"The staff are very nice and make you feel at ease. It's not nice having cancer, so it makes a big difference when you feel relaxed. They are such a wonderful team."  

"This turned out so good, I was surprised - it is damn good!" he adds.