Warrnambool's Ken Russell says his treatment for stage four stomach cancer was delayed by a month because there was no local PET scanner.
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The Labor government promised Warrnambool a positron emission tomography scanner during the 2022 state election campaign, but there has been no news on when it will arrive.
The Standard revealed in June local cancer patients were being forced to take arduous, two-day trips to get crucial scans.
Mr Russell said the government owed him and the others an explanation.
"It is just ridiculous, and it has cost me," he said.
"I have lost a month that could have been spent fighting this aggressive, killer cellular growth.
"We could be one month ahead of it, and when it's this advanced every minute counts.
"These bean counters need to explain what's going on."
'A meaningful delay to treatment'
Mr Russell had just arrived back in Australia in mid-April when he discovered his latest blood test had raised a red flag.
"I always get a blood test before flying back. This one said I should go to my GP immediately," he said.
Mr Russell drove to the Lyndoch Medical Hub only to find his doctor had left in the recent staff exodus.
"At my doctor's new clinic they said they weren't accepting new patients, but that I could retrieve my files back at Lyndoch," he said.
"I managed to see a doctor a couple of days later and when he looked at my blood test he just said 'oh my God.'"
Mr Russell had a CT scan in Warrnambool in late April, which showed metastatic cancer.
"The problem is, the CT couldn't reveal the primary cancer, you needed a PET scanner to do that," he said.
It was crucial to find out where the cancer had started to work out the right treatment, but the closest PET scanner was in Geelong and it took a month to get an appointment.
"It certainly made a meaningful delay to treatment," Mr Russell said.
'No delay' government says
The state government has repeatedly declined to say when the PET scanner would arrive in Warrnambool, but a spokesperson said there hadn't been any setbacks.
"There has been no delay in delivery of the eight new Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanners at public hospitals across the state," they said.
The machines were promised in 2022 and funded in the 2023 state budget, but there has been no news since.
The government said it hadn't decided where the machine would go, and South West Healthcare chief executive Craig Fraser said the hospital would have to find qualified staff to operate it.
The government spokesperson said these staff needed nuclear medicine accreditation.
"To legally operate PET-CT machines health services will deploy appropriately qualified and licenced Nuclear Medicine Technologists (NMTs)," they said.
But Mr Russell, who is a scientist by training, said Warrnambool already had such technicians operating its local CT machines.
"That's absolute rubbish, using that as an excuse. They already have the staff, of course they do," he said.
"I'm beginning to understand it's the bureaucrats that are the hold up. I just think about the poor little kids with cancer and their families.
"Do they realise this is a life-saving piece of diagnostic equipment?
"I'll tell you this, if those bean counters had a child who needed this scanner it would already be there."
The Standard asked the government whether the scanner had been ordered, but it wouldn't say.
Ben Silvester
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
Correspondent covering key issues across regional Victoria, based in Melbourne.
