SURVIVOR Ian Austin said the addition of a prostate cancer support nurse will help blokes about to go “through the mill”.
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Mr Austin said the local support group he works with were all rapt with news a support nurse would return to town after a three-year void.
The group helped lobby and petition for the job to be reinstated as soon as it ran out of funding in 2015.
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Mr Austin said it was a win for future patients.
“I emailed about thirty people,” he said.
“Most of them have been through the mill.
“It’s those still to come that will benefit.
“It’s for future sufferers, as much as the survived.”
The Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia (PCFA) is currently recruiting for the job with a number of candidates shortlisted for the role.
It’s believed the nursing role will be funded for three years.
PCFA was able to reinstate the role following donations from The Profield Foundation and an anonymous donor.
Mr Austin said the nursing position would mean patients wouldn’t be alone after surgery or treatment.
“You can be incontinent, depressed, you can have sexual problems,” he said.
“You can get a subsidy on incontinence pads, which most people don’t know about.
“We found out in recent times, there’s a magnetic chair at the hospital that they treat incontinence with and apparently it’s very effective.
“You’ve got to be referred for those things to happen and that only happens through a prostate nurse.”
The Tamworth prostate cancer support group meets on the second Wednesday of every month.
He said the group helped people know what to expect and how they could help themselves.
“I contacted them in the first place for support and at that stage it was a very business-type meeting, so I didn’t think there was much in it for me,” he said.
“Since I’ve been in it, we’ve changed it a bit to where we can tell our story and we can drop the barriers and talk about our wobbly bits and get it down to a level of not a taboo subject.
“We’re not medical people, we’re just people that have been through the mill and can talk to people.”
It was hard for him explain why he felt the need to help other living with the disease.
“I think there’s three groups of people,” he said.
“Those that are too thick to care and those that have been cured and want to get on and forget about it.
“There’s a group in the middle living with prostate cancer, or supposedly cured, that are prepared to put their hand up and say you’re not the only one in the world.”
Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australian men.