"Can Assist" - Cancer Assistance Network, NSW - re accommodation, advocacy, assistance & resources

2 articles in the Sunday paper today ..... showing the additional price that rural people have to pay (on top of any gaps in fees) for getting 'access to decent treatment' ..... that perhaps those in cities may possibly 'take for granted' - as they rarely have to travel even 1/2hr for treatment or surgery and definitely don't have to pay for accomodation .... but it is 'not so' for us 'rural folk'.  When we arrived in rural NSW, the first thing we were told was - WHEN IN PAIN, TAKE A PLANE ..... 

Can Assist is actively agitating the NSW Gov for more realistic 'assistance' in both fuel and accommodation costs.

Just by including 'everyone on the Medicare Card' to be eligible for the weekly Kms covered for compensation .... would be a start, instead of every person on the card individually having to do the 100kms a week to qualify.  We've been affected by this stupid rule, big time, since my husband became seriously ill 15 months ago .... with many trips being denied compensation.  eg - he had to have an abscessed tooth out before he started the stronger chemo in Dec (as necrosis of the jaw can occur if the extraction occurred after he started the new chemo ...) and had to go to a town 1/2hr away to have it done - but IPTAAS will only contribute to fuel costs if the extraction is done in a hospital, not at a dental surgery - and the travel covered had to be in excess of 200km within a 7 day period to qualify .... as it was, he had to have 2 trips & we only cracked 90km X 2 = 180KM ... but the week before he'd been to hospital on 2 occasions (another 90km X 2 = 180), but they couldn't be added to the dental 180km ....... We had 5 weeks of 'overlapping' trips to the closest hospital/treatment including a 4 day stay in hospital - but none of them equated to the 200km per week, so all trip expenses (7 of them) were denied even tho there was about 500km involved.

Tommy's parents were left WAY out of pocket for them being in Newcastle to support their son ...  basically, IPTAAS says that travelling to be with their ill child is almost considered a 'holiday' - so not eligible for any compensation .....   

Can Assist very kindly jumped in and paid for the shortfalls ..... Please read these articles .....



When we DID get travel 'in excess of 100k a week' and 2 nights accommodation - they stuffed up the application & didn't process the accommodation component - so numerous emails were required to rectify that .... and that was only because I tried to work out 'what they'd paid' and it didn't add up (they don't readily tell you what the payment is made up of ...) 

Most older folk just don't even bother applying .... as it is just so confusing and time consuming, for such little 'return' - and many are not computer literate.  They are impossible to contact by phone & you never speak to the same person twice.

I am amazed at the ridiculous requests - like getting my Radiation Oncologist to fill in a Referral for the 'random person' who happened to be working on the day I had my recent Ultrasound Recalls ...... I already had the 'trip dairy' filled in and signed by the Radiology Clinic on the day (that has sufficed previously with claims over the last 4 years) - but suddenly that wasn't good enough - I now had to contact my specialist to fill in yet ANOTHER form with the 'specific radiologist' name on it (which was ON THE TRIP DIARY along with her ID number) - which was a total waste of her time, when she always has many very sick patients requiring her attention.

PS ... MAKE SURE YOU KEEP COPIES OF EVERYTHING THAT YOU SEND IN, too - cos they lose them!!



Centrelink isn't much better - they tell you to upload documents to their site during covid (rather than going to the Centrelink Offices) and then don't check the documents.  I had my pension stopped  for 2 months because they hadn't checked the documents that I'd loaded up for them, twice (same ones!)   grrrr