Jane Harriss has been fighting for a permanent surgical service for gynecological cancers in Canberra for almost two decades — with good reason.
“My mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer some years ago and she died with it, after having survived for seven years,” Ms Harriss said.
“She was one of those people, who had to go to Sydney for her surgery.”
The metastasising cancer saw Ms Hariss’s mum, Erica, make three trips to Sydney for separate surgeries, with follow-up appointments in Canberra, through a fortnightly clinic provided as a fly-in-fly-out service by Sydney’s Royal Hospital for Women.
Work is now under way to remove that travel requirement and deliver the capital’s first permanent gyneacological surgery service.
“Canberra Health Services has just been working through what the model of care will look like, what supports will be required to ensure that that can occur,” ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said.
The FIFO service has faced an uncertain future for months, since the surgeon announced he would be retiring at the end of the year and Canberra-based doctor, Leon Foster, put his hand up to run a permanent clinic if funding was found.
At a media conference on June 17, Ms Stephen-Smith suggested funding was not the issue.
“It’s more a question of assessing when the number of people that are having to travel interstate is actually sufficient that we can bring that service into the ACT,” she said at the time.
But on Monday, she confirmed Canberra Health Services had advertised for a full-time specialist surgeon and a “merit-based recruitment process” was required.
‘They had to travel when they were very ill’
Ms Harriss said the progress was “better late than never” and every woman she’ had met through her ovarian cancer support group had been frustrated over the absence of a permanent Canberra clinic.
“They had to travel when they were, effectively, very ill — because it’s diagnosed late-stage,” she said.
“And then they’d have to return home, within about 10 days of having massive abdominal surgery. And they would have to do this a number of times, potentially.”
Ms Harriss said she was pleased the government had chosen “to go down this path”.
“It’s wonderful in terms of women who are currently dealing with the disease and for those who potentially might be diagnosed in the future,” she said.
“It will make life … not easier, but a little bit less stressful.”
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