Travelling for treatment creating isolation and distress for rural patients

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Receiving hospital treatment is stressful and scary at the best of times but imagine travelling hundreds of kilometres from home and your support network to receive that treatment. That's a challenge that many Queenslanders must endure and advocates say it puts an added mental health burden on patients.

Transcript

00:00 Despite being surrounded by people, there's no familiar faces in Townsville for Robin

00:08 Neade.

00:09 "Very lonely, stressful, sad."

00:12 Ms Neade's heart is at home in Mount Isa with her 20 grandkids.

00:17 Yet she's stuck living in Townsville receiving life-saving dialysis treatment.

00:24 While there are dialysis chairs in Mount Isa, there's not enough to accommodate her.

00:30 "We've got to be there in Townsville sitting down and wishing that someone's hurry up and

00:36 die.

00:37 You wouldn't wish that upon anybody."

00:38 She's living in share accommodation with other patients, but she doesn't feel safe there.

00:43 "You're shoved into a house where you have to share the toilets, the showers, and there's

00:51 men's are there."

00:53 There are currently 16 operational renal chairs across the North West Queensland Health District,

01:00 with plans for four more chairs in both Doomerji and Mornington Island.

01:05 But experts say the rate of kidney disease is not slowing across the region, and being

01:11 treated far from home isn't the answer.

01:14 "It can really impact on someone's mental health when they don't have those supports around.

01:19 And at times people can disengage from treatment as well, which is an absolute travesty."

01:25 With 30 people on the wait list for dialysis treatment in Mount Isa, Ms Neade has no idea

01:32 when she'll be able to return home.

01:34 "I miss my family.

01:37 Being sick here is just so stressful, you know."

01:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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