Patient is forced to make huge daily journey to receive radiotherapy

Nick Fletcher had to travel 100 miles every day for a month to receive life-saving treatment.

The 58-year-old from Malton, North Yorkshire, traveled 50 miles each morning to a hospital in Leeds for radiation.

He was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the Magnolia Center at York Hospital. Still, Mr Fletcher had little choice but to undertake the ‘grueling’ two and a half hour journey to and from St James’s University Hospital in Leeds.

He said no hospital in York was able to carry out the procedure and that the nearest hospital with the machines needed for his radiotherapy treatment was in Leeds.

The media assistant underwent testing in January 2022 and was officially diagnosed around April 2022.

Mr Fletcher said his adviser said he was lucky because it was discovered at a relatively early stage and the cancer was still in the prostate.

He received hormone treatment almost immediately at his local surgery and began radiotherapy in Leeds in September 2022.

For a month, he had five back-to-back sessions every week, which meant he had to travel every day except weekends.

Mr Fletcher said: ‘The travel was a bit tricky. It was about 100 miles a day and I had to go every day but had weekends off.

‘If it hadn’t been for the travelling, it would have been a lot easier. But having said that you have to go where the machines are and I can’t praise the staff enough.

‘There were no machines in York or in Scarborough. It was a case of you had to go where these machines are.

“They told me at the hospital that someone was even coming from Newcastle.

“One night I came home late at night around 8 p.m. because your treatment times varied a lot, and I had to be there by 8 a.m. the next morning.

“Fortunately, I have a good supportive family, and my sister and my brother took me.”

Mr Fletcher, pictured, said he was lucky enough to be driven to and from hospital by his family.

And he added that the journey could have been more challenging if he had had to take public transportation.

He said he was given the option of radiotherapy or surgery to remove the prostate. But advisers thought that the combination of hormone treatment and radiotherapy would be the most effective option.

The 58-year-old from Malton, North Yorkshire, traveled 50 miles each morning to a hospital in Leeds for radiation

Despite the long journeys, he praised the staff at the hospital and said he was pleased that the treatment seems to have worked.

Mr Fletcher decided to have prostate cancer checks because there was a ‘pattern in his family’ as several of his brothers also had cancer and were cured.

He underwent biopsies and scans in January 2022, and the doctors found that his PSA (prostate-specific antigen) level in his blood was 55 ng/ml. Normal levels at which there is no risk of prostate cancer are usually around or below 4 ng/ml. ml.

However, after undergoing radiotherapy and hormone treatment, he was pleased to say that his test in January this year showed his PSA reading was 0.12 ng/ml.

Speaking of the distance, he said, “That was the only downside. I wish I had something closer.

‘It was tiring to travel, because it was also late autumn. Maybe they can make more centers for this.

“As I approached this treatment, I didn’t really think much about it. But I went to a pre-treatment plan in Leeds about two weeks before radiotherapy. I never really thought about it but one day it dawned on me and I thought “hold on, I have to go to Leeds every day for the next month”.

‘To be honest, I’m not very good at traveling myself, so it was quite a challenge for me and very tiring.

“It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes there and an hour and fifteen minutes back. When you got there, you would go about an hour before your treatment to empty your bladder and things like that.

‘But the procedure itself didn’t take long, it was mainly the travel that was the problem. If you got everything right, just the whole scan and treatment.’