Volunteers and guests celebrated the 10th anniversary of Western Care Lodge on Thursday.
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The lodge was built by Cancer Care Western NSW behind Orange Hospital for $5.4 million, to provide accommodation for regional and far western cancer patients while they attend treatment in Orange.
Chairman John Carpenter said the lodge has been able to accommodate more than 4000 guests in the 10-year period.
"It's a real milestone, our organisation and the organisation which preceded it were instrumental in having this facility built as part of the new hospital and then we set about raising funds to provide this accommodation to the patients who would be coming here," he said.
"It's been a very valuable facility for our catchment area which covers about a third of the state and about 300,000 people."
Mr Carpenter said there's been great feedback from the guests about the standard, convenience and the outlook of the accommodation.
"Indeed some of them come back for reunions because they've met one another during the course of their treatment and they feel so good about the place many have gone home and raised money and included their own fundraising," he said.
He said most guests stay for about five to six weeks while undergoing treatment.
Apart from maintenance, replacing beds and furniture Mr Carpenter said the next step will be to build a fence so guests have an outdoor space specific to the lodge. Grain Corp has donated $100,000 towards that project.
He said the lodge also recently upgraded all the rooms with airconditioning even though the facility was designed not to need it, and fundraising will continue for ongoing upgrades and maintenance.
Current guests include John and Roslyn Rennick from Forbes who are in their third week of staying at the lodge while Mr Rennick undergoes treatment.
"It saved us a 250 kilometre round trip everyday which is a bit too much for me," Mr Rennick said.
"They welcomed Ros to come with me to help me through this, it's a pretty traumatic time but with the facilities they've got here and the people being so nice it's a lot easier.
"We can't get over how good it is and our thanks go out to all the towns and villages in the Central West who put money into this project."
Fundraising chairwoman Jan Savage said before the lodge was built, regional patients had to travel to Sydney for treatment.
In addition to government funding, she said there have been donations from businesses, individuals, families and community groups across the catchment.
She said there were cases of children donating pocket money through to donations from people in Hong Kong, a family donated $250,000, and the communities of Cargo and Cudal donated $150,000 among many other contributions made over the years.
Lodge timeline:
- Members of the Radiotherapy Alliance formed by Orange City Council visited Wagga Wagga in late 2006 and formed of the charity.
- Cancer Care Western NSW registered in March 2007 as a not-for-profit charity.
- The organisation started fundraising in June 2007.
- The organisation increased broad level community engagement in early 2008. Regional councils provided support, along with regional service organisations such as the CWA, Lions and Rotary clubs, which committing to funding support.
- The lodge was commissioned with the first patients arriving in the first week in October 2011. Some of the first guests came from Condobolin,and Mudgee to receive treatment at the recently opened radiotherapy unit in Orange.
- Stage two opened in February 2013.
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