Those behind a new non-profit society offering cancer patients free rides to and from medical appointments are looking to the community for support.
The Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society was launched earlier this year and started serving patients Feb. 29.
Community members are encouraged to come on board as volunteer drivers, sign up as clients or make monetary donations. "We've basically done everything we can do. Now it's up to the public and businesses to support us," says Garth Pinton, society president.
The 67-year-old retired North Vancouver resident was part of a group of people who banded together to get the Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society up and running in the wake of the closure of a similar service long offered by the Canadian Cancer Society.
"The Canadian Cancer Society's Volunteer Drivers Program was closed in B.C. in October 2015. We made the difficult decision for a number of reasons, including decreasing volunteer numbers and ridership, the existence of similar government-funded driving programs and increasing operating costs. We are pleased to hear of volunteers starting their own program to drive people to their cancer treatments and follow-up care. We applaud any organization that supports those fighting cancer or aims to make their lives a little easier," says Leanne Morgan, director of support services, Canadian Cancer Society, B.C. and Yukon.
Pinton, a founding partner of PFM Executive Search, and former Greater Vancouver Food Bank board member, volunteered as a driver with the Canadian Cancer Society's Volunteer Drivers Program for five years. He was compelled to get involved after supporting his own mother, a Vancouver resident, through her cancer journey.
The challenging time led him to wonder how other patients could cope, particularly those who lived far away from their treatment centres and were without family members or friends to offer rides, particularly those who were unable to afford private, fee-for-service options like taxis or caregiving service providers. Further troubling to him was the knowledge that following certain treatments, patients can feel quite ill. Having to then worry about how they're going to get home seemed like an unnecessary stress.
Pinton became a volunteer with the society's program in 2010 and from day one realized the positive impact it had on both the patients and volunteers.
"It was just incredible. . . . My expression is, 'At the end of the day I felt badly because I felt so good,'" he says, explaining the positivity expressed by those he drove, despite the difficult situations they found themselves in, was truly overwhelming. He drove people from diverse backgrounds, for example, those living in subsidized housing as well as those in the British Properties. While the majority of clients were in their 60s and 70s, he also drove patients as young as 10 and as old as 85.
The news of the Canadian Cancer Society's Volunteer Drivers Program closure came as a shock to Pinton as well as many of his fellow drivers.
"They were devastated, not because they didn't have somebody to drive, because they knew how those people were going to be affected," he says.
Not wanting to see the service disappear, Pinton and a group of like-minded individuals started taking steps to launch their own program.
"When we started to talk about it, we thought, 'You know? We can do this,'" he says.
The Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society is now up and running and is awaiting charitable status. They're maintaining a virtual office to limit overhead costs and everything is made possible through the efforts of volunteers.
"Obviously family, in this day and age, can't always be available five days a week," says Pinton.
"We take the stress out of the transportation issue, focus everything on getting better, not, 'how I'm going to get there and how I'm going to get back,'" he adds.
So far they've attracted 50 volunteer drivers to the society, 35 of whom were involved in the former cancer society program. Interested drivers are encouraged to apply, asked to complete an application form and submit an ICBC driver's abstract along with proof of $3 million third party liability insurance. The society hopes to eventually be able to pay driver mileage.
"It's the perfect job because you set your own hours, days, times," says Pinton.
Clients are also encouraged to get in touch and so far 10 have registered.
"It will only continue to grow the longer the word is out there," says Pinton.
There is no charge for the service. Clients can make donations if they like, but they're by no means pressured to do so.
Drivers offer door-to-door personalized service, and the society's dispatch system is set up to ensure patients are dropped off and picked up as per their time-specific needs, whether their appointment lasts 10 minutes or six hours.
The Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society is currently offering rides to those in North and West Vancouver, Port Coquitlam, Coquitlam, Port Moody, New Westminster, Langley, Delta, Surrey, White Rock and Abbotsford. Society drivers are also happy to pick up those arriving in Horseshoe Bay via ferry.
Common destinations include the B.C. Cancer Agency Vancouver clinic, B.C. Children's Hospital as well as other area hospitals and medical offices.
"It's a vast geographic area from east to west and, as everybody knows, going back and forth to the cancer clinic over those bridges is not easy these days and I think it's very stressful for a lot of the residents," says Pinton.
North Vancouver's Ann Roberts, 77, is one of the society's first clients.
"I am absolutely ecstatic that they've come back," she says.
Roberts started using the Canadian Cancer Society's Volunteer Drivers Program in 1998 in light of a diagnosis with breast cancer followed by uterine cancer.
"They picked me up and took me to the cancer agency and brought me back. Good service, local men or women driving and they got to know their patients and the people they were driving. They were very kind. If I wasn't down at the appropriate time they would go upstairs to whatever department I was in to see if I was alright and when I was coming home," she says.
"They talk to you about your family and if you're in the dumps about something with cancer, they jolly you back," she adds.
Having some upcoming appointments with her oncologist and no family living locally, she's grateful for the return of the service and for the support of the newly founded society.
"It's important to me as a person and it's important for people on the North Shore to know that this program is coming back. It's our duty as people to help each other. I think that the (new society) is going to be wonderful," she says.
According to Morgan, the Canadian Cancer Society continues to support cancer patients in B.C. through a variety of programs, including two intended to reduce the burden of travel on people with cancer. One is the Travel Treatment Fund, where clients receive a subsidy to help offset the costs of transportation (i.e. feefor-service providers) and the second is its four cancer lodges. In many cases, it can be more cost-effective and less tiring for clients to stay near their treatment location rather than commuting for hours a day, she says.
The Freemasons Cancer Car Program (freemasonry.bcy.ca/textfiles/cancer.html) services patients living in the Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond and New Westminster areas. In addition, other similar driver programs have been started by former Canadian Cancer Society volunteers in Squamish and Victoria.
For information on how to volunteer as a driver with the Volunteer Cancer Drivers Society, to register as a patient, or to provide financial support, phone 604-515-5400 or visit volunteercancerdrivers.ca.
