(website/Canadian Cancer Society)

By Alison Sandstrom

access to care

Transportation service for cancer patients coming to P.A.

Jan 13, 2020 | 5:05 PM

The Canadian Cancer Society is expanding its Wheels of Hope service to provide transportation for Prince Albert residents travelling to Saskatoon for cancer treatment.

“It will mean relief,” Charlene Bernard, development officer with the Canadian Cancer Society in Prince Albert told paNOW.

“It can be very stressful for people to worry about how they’re going to get to their appointments.”

The Canadian Cancer Society already operates the low-cost transportation service in Saskatoon, Regina and other parts of Canada.

Previously, patients living in the North could take the STC into the city, where volunteer drivers would pick them up at the bus depot and transport them to their appointment. The shuttering of STC in 2017 ended the practice.

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Based on the high number of people who used STC to get to their appointments, Bernard estimates well over one hundred people could use the newly expanded Wheels of Hope Service to and from P.A.

She figured some patients make between 30 and 40 trips to Saskatoon a year for treatment, and many who are receiving daily radiation for example want to be in their own home at night.

“Travelling back and forth is not only difficult financially, having to drive can also be very demanding physically.”

Bernard added there was a sense of mutual support when people used to ride the STC bus for medical issues and she hoped that would also be the case with their service.

“You really got to know people. There was a built-in support system because you were with people who really knew what you were going through and you could share experiences,” she said.

The Canadian Cancer society is currently looking for volunteers to drive the Wheels of Hope van.

Bernard says the service should be up and running early this year.

alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca