Last week I was approached by someone in a shop, they were angry that there was no radiation therapy treatment in Northland, and she had to travel.  In fact that the closest place for any Cancer treatment is Auckland, Hamilton and then Tauranga.

It got me thinking, here I am presently trying to raise money for Project Promise, so that the Northland Community Foundation can start building a larger Oncology unit here in Whangarei to look after Northland, yet where is the support from the local Politicians.

Admittedly, when I was on the Whangarei District Council we voted to remove all building fees to help start the process to build the facility.  So what has happened since then?

In the last three weeks I have attended three funerals, all for Cancer sufferers.  One even went to China to receive alternative treatment, and yet our local politicians do nothing more.

In a survey produced by the Ministry of Health this year, showed that Northland has an extremely high death rate towards Cancer, and even has an extremely high rate of reported Cancer sufferers.  Yet there are no plans in the near future by the ministry to provide Northland with any additional Cancer treatments.

Northland, we need to encourage our politicians, and those in power, to speed up this process, because Northland needs to be better Cancer Treatments here in Northland.

References:

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/8663/$File/cancer-control-work-programme-0809.pdf

http://www.moh.govt.nz/moh.nsf/pagesmh/10718/$File/cancer-new-registrations-deaths-2008.pdf

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