The NSW Cancer Survivors Centre has received a cheque for $205,810 from the Dry July campaign to help patients cope with the challenges they face after cancer treatment.
The NSW Cancer Survivors Centre has received a cheque for $205,810 from the Dry July campaign to enable the fledgling centre to buy equipment and help patients cope with the challenges they face after cancer treatment.
The UNSW-based centre, which is Australia’s first community-based centre for cancer survivors, is dedicated to improving the health of the rapidly growing number of Australian cancer survivors, estimated to be around one million.
The Centre works with the Lifestyle Clinic at UNSW, which provides physical activity and lifestyle programs for the prevention and management of chronic disease, in collaboration with health researchers and clinicians.
Centre Director and UNSW Professor Andrew Lloyd says the centre is grateful for the efforts of Dry July fundraisers and for the funds, which are “vastly in excess” of expectations.
Professor Lloyd says the money will be used to buy exercise equipment, monitoring equipment for people using the centre’s services and patient management software systems.
Dry July executive director and co-founder, Brett Macdonald, says the campaign raised more than $3.7 million this year from its 15,000 participants.
“It started out as a bit of a joke between a few friends, one of whom had recent cancer treatment, and it’s now taken on a life of its own,” Macdonald says of the campaign which involves fundraisers giving up alcohol for a month.
Centre Survivorship Fellow, oncologist Dr Kate Webber, says the Centre helps cancer survivors who face side effects from cancer treatment, whether that be fatigue, mood related problems or facing lifestyle issues such as obesity, giving up smoking and doing physical exercise.
“The reasons we have brought these services together is we have recognised that there’s a real unmet need when cancer treatment finishes,” Dr Webber says.
“Survivors still get lost and run into problems that they didn’t anticipate after finishing treatment - some people find it really easy; others find it harder than expected and face challenges.”
Fundraiser Paul Schiebaan, who raised $5,616.00 for the cause, is a cancer survivor – twice – and knows what survivors face – feeling scared, isolated and in need of physical, spiritual and dietary care.
“I’ve seen it from many angles. I’m in discussions with the Centre to see how I can help them,” he says.
Dry July fundraiser David Terelinck, who raised $4,047.15, says his partner was diagnosed with cancer last year and he believes funds going to the centre will help patients and families with the peaks and valleys they traverse after treatment.
“When they discharged him nobody told us that the road to recovery was a roller coaster. We want to normalise the road to recovery,” he says.