Existing surgery welcomes new player for Bundaberg.
By Zachery O’Brien
With the weather already heating back up and the start of summer only a few months away, questions have been
raised about the availability of Bundaberg’s skin cancer specialists.
It’s possible Bundaberg will have another skin cancer care and treatment clinic.
The new clinic was proposed by Dr Charles Blair for a Barolin Street address. The aim is to start accepting patients early next year.
Whilst most general practitioners will check patients skin, they often don’t have the specialised equipment of dedicated clinics. A Wide Bay Hospital and Health Service spokesperson said yesterday that Wide Bay and Queensland as a whole had a higher than national average rate of melanomas and other skin cancers.
“According to the Cancer Council Qld, 218 people in Wide Bay are diagnosed with melanoma each year,” the spokesperson said.
“On average there are 28 deaths per year in Wide Bay due to melanoma.”
The spokesperson said if a skin check identified a concern, health care providers would refer patients to a Wide Bay hospital.
“If a skin cancer risk is identified at the specialist outpatient appointment patients are placed on the elective surgery list for a procedure,” the spokesperson said, adding that surgery wait times were determined by clinical urgency.
Dr Preshey Varghese is a skin specialist at Grace Skin and Vein Centre, one of only two specialist clinics in Bundaberg.
“Grace Skin and Vein Centre has four specialist doctors, who see between 10 and 15 patients per day,” Dr Varghese said yesterday. Because the time spent with each patient varied greatly depending on the amount of checking required, Dr Varghese said the clinic was typically very busy.
“My waiting time is at least 2 months,” Dr Varghese said.
Published by the NewsMail on August 16, 2019.