Child cancer effort attracts 280

Press, 5 March 1988, Page 6

Child cancer effort attracts 280

More than 280 Christchurch people paid $lOO each to attend a special dinner in an elegant marquee in the grounds of Christ’s College last evening.

The dinner was the inaugural fund-raising effort by the Child Cancer Foundation Canterbury Accommodation Trust to pay for the four-bedroom Cashel Street house the trust bought recently.i That $400,000 house is the first in Slew Zealand to offer accommodation to

families whose children are undergoing treatment for cancer.

Professor Jim Biggs, director of the haematology department and head of the Bone Marrow Transplant! Unit at St Vincent’s Hospital. Sydney, was the guest .speaker.

St Vincent’s has a similar ! building which can house; up to four families. The! advantage of having supportive family and friends living close to the hospital has proved invaluable, he said.

"There is nothing worse than going into hospital. Anything we can do to alleviate that stress is worth doing." Professor Biggs said such “half-way houses” providing low-cost, close accommodation for families not only helped a patient's: mental attitude and even recovery but also a family’s ability to cope. Maintaining the family unit and, in particular, open .'communication were important.

“The worst thing that

can happen to a patient is to be isolated.”

Professor Biggs said similar houses had been established throughout Australia and many had been funded by public subscription.

“I think it is a little naive to think the Government will fund such accommodation. Yet on the other hand financial savings can be made.” He also spoke of the need for society to face the facts about cancer and other chronic

diseases.

One in three in today’s society would get cancer and one in four would probably die from it, he said.

“No-one can be immune from cancer — it touches everyone’s lives eventually.” The trust’s chairwoman, Ms Dallas Beckett, said lit had already organised other fund-raising vehtures to take place in April, including a Radiothon and a Pink Panther party.