Men across the Goulburn and Murray valleys will no longer have to travel to Melbourne to receive the best prostate treatment after a group of charitable organisations combined to purchase a biopsy machine for GV Health.
Male Bag Foundation, Freemasons Foundation Victoria and Biggest Ever Blokes Luncheon Shepparton, with help from the GV Health Foundation, have each contributed funding to provide almost $200,000 to purchase the transperineal biopsy machine.
Prostate cancer is the most prevalent of all cancers diagnosed in the Goulburn Murray region and accounts for 27 per cent of male cancer diagnoses.
The biopsy machine will improve diagnoses for men and reduce stress and cost for patients by allowing them to be treated in Shepparton.
GV Health Foundation and Engagement director Claire Ewart-Kennedy said the purchase would make a huge difference to men’s health in the region.
“It’s ground-breaking for our community, and the GV Health Foundation’s played a really important role in bringing three funders together to fund something that is life-changing for men and their families in our community,” Ms Ewart-Kennedy said.
“This has been funded a third, a third, a third pretty much, and obviously with the Freemasons the local chapters have put in their money as well, which we need to pay homage to.”
Rodney Lavin, from Freemasons Foundation Victoria, said local Shepparton Freemasons had prompted its contributions.
“I live in country Victoria myself and I get it, it’s not fair that country blokes, who have prostate cancer or getting tested, have to go all the way to Melbourne,” he said.
“Why shouldn’t they have facilities out here?”
Biggest Ever Blokes Lunch chairman Shane O’Sullivan said a successful lunch in August had meant it had raised enough funds to be able to contribute to the machine’s cost.
“It was just such an outstanding success this year, because of the Shepparton community’s generosity that we had extra money and the opportunity just arose with the other two funds,” he said.
“It was a no-brainer for us to step in.”
Prostate cancer specialist nurse Sonia Strachan said some men had previously foregone the best treatment because they couldn’t be treated locally.
“We’ve got men from all over our region, not just Shepparton,” she said.
“We have men from southern NSW so getting to Melbourne isn’t as simple as hopping on a train in Shepparton; some of them have to get to Shepparton and get to Melbourne, and, absolutely, there can be unfavourable outcomes.
“We know the earlier that we diagnose prostate cancer the much better outcomes they are going to have.”
Male Bag Foundation patron, and former AFL coach, David Parkin said its contribution to the machine’s purchase was part of its ongoing contributions to regional and rural communities.
“I had a father, who died a very painful death from prostate cancer, and I’m a prostate cancer survivor on top of that, so it’s been in my own life, health- and family-wise, and it’s been significant,” he said.
Mr Parkin said many men were yet to get the message that they needed to get tested as early as possible for health issues such as prostate and bowel cancer.
“Men have not got much better,” he said.
“Significantly better in metropolitan areas. In rural-regional Australia it has not improved very much at all, so the message we’re getting out in a place like Shepparton is it’s absolutely vital to change the attitudes of men and get them at least thinking about and checking up on what is a very simple blood test.
“It doesn’t cost you anything to say, ‘I may or may not have a problem’.”
GV Health urologist Dan Lenaghan explains the benefits of the transperineal biopsy machine