'They find you a spot and say take it or leave it': Andrew Rutledge on why Orange needs its own PET scanner

Despite having extensive cancer treatment facilities available at the Orange Health Service, a Positron Emission Tomography, or PET scanner, is a controversial omission brought into the spotlight when Dubbo opened it's $35 million Western Cancer Centre in 2021.

The Dubbo PET is the only one in western NSW and is an alternative for the majority of Orange and Bathurst patients travelling to Penrith's Nepean Hospital for the scans.

Member for Orange Phil Donato brought the matter up in Parliament in May, calling for the NSW Government to allocate funding for a similar machine for the Orange health service in this year's budget.

Last month's Parliamentary inquiry [report 57] into Health Outcomes and Access to Health and Hospital Services in Rural, Regional and Remote NSW identified that cancer patients in country areas were at a significant disadvantage to their metropolitan counterparts and Mr Rutledge said his experience illustrated that.

"I had to pay for two night's accommodation, fuel to get down there and back on top of missing two days work," Mr Rutledge, 49, said explaining he had an ultrasound and CT scan early on the first day before the PET scan the following day.

"It's $400 or so and would have cost me more if I didn't have some leave available. Plus you've got meals on top of that."

Mr Rutledge, who started treatment days after the birth of his son Archie, completed all his treatment in Orange other than the PET scan.

"They rang me up and said we're booking you in next week. So then you have to run around and try and organise everything, time off work, accommodation. They give you a week-and-a-half to a week's notice.

"They find a spot for you and it's take it or leave it. You can't risk missing it."

Report 57 recommended that NSW Health work with the Commonwealth and all relevant service providers to investigate strategies to ensure public patient being treated in regional cancer centres can access private public services while reducing out-of-pocket costs.

"If there was a machine here it would have been so much easier," Mr Rutledge said.

A PET scanner, which can help diagnose some cancers and reveal the effectiveness of treatments for others, was the "missing piece" at the Forest Road health campus according to Senior Oncologist at Orange Health Service Rob Zielinski.

Mr Rutledge said his scan gave him peace of mind his treatment had been successful.

"My prostate [tumour] had spread to my liver, like, grapefruit size, dead-set in the middle of my liver. What they could see here in Orange was that other than the last millimetre on the outside, had died ... so they were talking about cutting it out.

"That would have been a major operation but the PET scan proved I didn't need it. That saved me a lot."