Hawkes’ Bay still waiting for its cancer radiation machine
It has been three years since the people of Hawke’s Bay were told they would get a cancer radiation machine that would mean patients no longer had to travel to Palmerston North for treatment.
When Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and then Health Minister David Clark made the announcement in August 2019, they said the region would be getting a new LINAC, or linear accelerator machine the following year.
Much has happened in the past three years. We have a new health minister, the last Hawke’s Bay District Health Board was voted in (and this year, along with all other DHBs, disbanded), and countless staff, and cancer patients, have come and gone.
One thing has remained unchanged: Hawke’s Bay still does not have a LINAC machine, and it looks like it is still some way from getting one.
A business case for the development of a $33.1 million specialist facility to house the machine was approved by current Minister of Health Andrew Little in November last year.
That approval was given on the condition that the Health Ministry’s health infrastructure unit (HIU) approved of the site chosen to house the facility.
It turned out that the HIU did not approve of the chosen site, which had been selected by the DHB using an outdated site master plan.
So in December last year a different site was chosen.
But this site was in a location that was not near the chemotherapy and haematology departments. So in January the DHB wrote back to the HIU asking that the business case be revised in order to include the relocation of the chemotherapy and haematology departments.
The HIU acknowledged the DHB’s plan and noted it would be more expensive and a decision would not be able to be made until after the 2022 budget was delivered (in July).
Te Whatu Ora Te Matau a Māui Hawke’s Bay’s general manager of hospital group, Paula Jones, said the organisation was continuing to develop its proposal and the design was in the early concept stage.
She said there were several location options, one of which would be selected to take forward, subject to approval of the updated business case, which was likely to be provided to the HIU early next year. It was likely to take six months for the HIU to consider the business case, and it was not possible to say when the LINAC machine would be in place.
Taranaki and Northland were also promised the machines in 2019. Taranaki’s will be in a new cancer treatment centre opening in 2024.
Northland’s is expected to be in place the following year.