Coniston man's £1,100 travel bill for cancer treatment (From The Westmorland Gazette)
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Coniston man's £1,100 travel bill for cancer treatment
11:40am Thursday 3rd November 2011 in Health
COST OF HEALTH: Peter Myers tops up his car, with fuel costs for his radiotherapy treatment having added up to more than £1,100.
A MAN who spent more than £1,100 travelling to Preston for cancer treatment has backed our campaign to bring a radiotherapy unit to South Lakeland.
Peter Myers, of Coniston, contacted The Westmorland Gazette to pledge his support to the paper’s Shorter Journeys Longer Lives campaign, which is aimed at gaining public support for cancer treatment services to be introduced at Kendal’s Westmorland General Hospital.
It is being run in parallel with a campaign launched by Westmorland and Lonsdale MP Tim Farron.
After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, Mr Myers had to travel around 4,400 miles in just two months to get his 37 radiotherapy treatments at the Royal Preston Hospital.
“When you get there it is a fantastic place, it’s just getting there that is the problem,” he said.
“It was obviously a long journey which wasn’t easy on a daily basis.
“The other thing was the expense. We saved up for months and months and months to pay for getting there and back.
“Myself and my wife are just ordinary pensioners so it was a huge amount of money.
"We are so grateful that the treatment was successful, but it would have made such a difference if the journey was to Kendal, and we do hope that in the future patients will have a much shorter journey.”
