A challenge for Hope residents seeking cancer treatment is transportation, and it is often friends and family who step in to fill the need as cancer-driving services do not extend here.
Across the Lower Mainland cancer driver services are offered by the Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society (VCDS) and the Freemason’s Cancer Car Program, neither of these services extends to Hope. Instead, it is family and friends, as well as Care Transit, who step in to transport residents to treatment in Abbotsford and sometimes as far as Vancouver.
“We are last resort, we should be last resort,” said Wanda Prest, program coordinator for Care Transit in Hope. “Most people, they use their friends and family, but if someone is going five times a week that’s tough.”
Pinky Ortilla has been supporting her boyfriend through colon cancer, which had the pair going first to a specialist in Chilliwack and then to Vancouver for an extended stay, then eight months of chemotherapy.
As a result, money is tight and the couple relies on friends and family to assist them with transportation.
“My boyfriend had to stop working, he had to take some time off work because of it, we really got tight on money,” she said. “For us to get transportation from here to Abbotsford for his chemo treatments, we can’t get transportation. We can only get it if we’re in Abbotsford or close to the area.”
Another challenge is parking, Ortilla said. The tickets add up quickly as the couple has to pay for parking at all hospitals they visit and Ortilla would like to see these fees waived. Black Press previously reported Fraser Health generates $8.4 million a year in revenue from parking fees, and there are no plans to waive parking fees for patients said spokesperson Roy Thorpe.
Ortilla, who wants to become an LPN down the road, said the difficulties she has faced as a caregiver makes her less than confident in the medical system.
Brad Green, who cared for his late mother Winnie when she was going through cancer treatments, said the Care Transit service was essential. Winnie used the service to get to her twice-weekly appointments when Green was working out of town, and he said it helped ease the “huge burden” of being her primary caregiver.
There was also an element of socializing and friendship through the ride service he said was important for his mother. He added not many know about the service, before he found out about it he was asking friends to help him while he was away at camp in Alberta.
“If you’ve got a good support system, cancer is definitely not as scary as it used to be,” said MaryAnne Hope, who underwent treatment for stage 4 breast cancer.
She had her partner or daughter drive her to her treatments in Abbotsford, now that she is finished treatment she still needs to drive there every three months to pick up medication.
Care Transit has seen an increased need for all the services they offer. From 2013 to today, the organization has gone from an average of 5,000 to 12,000 kilometres driven by volunteers per month.
“It takes drivers away, for one, and then also the funding,” said Prest.
The driving to and from regional cancer centres is expensive and time-consuming, as drivers take patients to their appointments and wait until they are ready to return. Sometimes the volunteer drivers end up doing 10 to 12 hour days if the person gets treatment in Vancouver.
The Canadian Cancer Society has not had an office in Hope for over 10 years, and no longer offers a driver service, although a travel allowance is available for low-income individuals with cancer.
Prest would like to see the cancer society come on board to ease the burden on Care Transit.
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