ONE of the city's most cherished cancer charities has collapsed due to a lack of volunteers.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Can Assist Wagga, which has been in city for more than quarter of a century and helped countless locals in their darkest hour, announced this week it had been forced to fold.
Its closure will be a devastating loss for the community, being the only grassroots organisation raising money to assist local cancer patients bear the financial burden that a cancer diagnosis so often brings.
The branch has supported a great number or people through the financial, and indeed, emotional struggles of a cancer diagnosis, Wagga’s Can Assist president Marie Papworth said.
“The Wagga branch has financially assisted 51 people in 2015 with pharmacy costs, supplements, electricity, rent, groceries, travel, doctor and treatment charges and other costs while undergoing cancer treatment,” she said.
The arrival of the Riverina Cancer Care Centre (RCCC) in Wagga, the number of Can Assist volunteers dropped dramatically, with people requiring less assistance from the branch due to a lesser need to travel for cancer treatment.
Despite the closure of the branch, Can Assist’s presence will still be felt in Wagga as it continues to run Lilier lodge, an accommodation facility that assists cancer patients from outlying areas who come to the RCCC for vital treatment, in partnership with the Cancer Council.
There are currently 15 clients receiving financial assistance from the Wagga branch, all of who have been informed of the closure.