Transportation problems are hampering the ability of cancer patients in remote areas of southern and eastern Taiwan to get treatment, the Formosa Cancer Foundation said yesterday as it released a short documentary aimed at raising public awareness of the issue.
More than half of the patients have to spend more than four hours traveling going to and from a hospital for treatment, and transportation difficulties have made more than 60 percent think about giving up treatment, the foundation said.
More than 100,000 people are diagnosed with cancer annually in Taiwan, and about 59.2 percent are more than 60 years old, but treating cancer requires frequent and stable follow-up care, sometimes as often as two to three times a week, it said.
Photo: Wu Liang-yi, Taipei Times
However, given that increasing numbers of young people have moved from rural to urban areas, elderly patients often have to travel alone or accompanied by other elderly people, it said.
The documentary by director Lu Chien-chang (盧建彰) shows actress Allison Lin (林予晞) driving an elderly man, surnamed Yeh (葉), from his home in Yilan County’s Datong Township (大同) to a hospital for chemotherapy.
Yeh, who has stage 4 esophageal cancer and cannot walk steadily on his own, began chemotherapy two years ago, but his wife also has cancer and cannot drive, which has meant that he spends up to five hours on a round-trip bus journey once every two weeks.
A foundation survey of 1,036 cancer patients showed that 71 percent of respondents living in northern Taiwan can make a round trip visit to the hospital in two hours, but 58 percent of those in southern Taiwan and 68 percent of those in eastern Taiwan spend more than four hours per round trip, foundation deputy chief executive Tsai Li-chuan (蔡麗娟) said.
Nearly 70 percent of respondents in southern or eastern Taiwan said they often made the trip alone, with many choosing to travel by scooter, she said.
However, it is dangerous for such patients to drive a scooter when they are ill or exhausted from chemotherapy treatments.
Lu said he had only learned that his own father was driving a motorcycle to the hospital for chemo treatments — taking his mother, who has dementia, along with him — when he received a telephone call from the police telling him that his father had fallen over his motorcycle.
Seventy-three percent of respondents were less willing to continue with follow-up care if faced with transportation difficulties, Tsai said.
Nearly 70 percent of those in southern and eastern Taiwan have thought about discontinuing treatment due to transportation difficulties, while less than 30 percent of those in northern Taiwan have about it, she said.
For a fifth year, the foundation is offering support for elderly cancer patients in remote areas in southern or eastern Taiwan who have financial difficulties in receiving follow-up care, she said.
The program is supported by Fubon Life Insurance, and the foundation is now accepting subsidy applications from eligible patients.
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