Shock stats reveal Victorian cancer patients’ struggles

New data reveals the biggest issues facing Victorian cancer patients and there are warnings it will only get worse.

Calls to a cancer helpline about mental health and financial concerns now outnumber treatment and symptom queries, in a growing trend that is expected to continue.

There were more than 1550 calls for psychological support to Cancer Council Victoria’s Helpline in the first three months of this year, a spike of more than 10 per cent compared to the previous quarter.

Queries about practical issues such as finances also rose by 10 per cent, with almost 1100 Victorians calling between January and March this year.

Together, both issues represented about two-thirds of the more than 13,000 calls made to the helpline in the 12 months to March 2023.

There has been a spike in the number of calls for psychological support to Cancer Council Victoria’s Helpline.

Cancer Council Victoria’s head of strategy Danielle Spence said she “absolutely” expected calls on these topics to continue to increase, with the average phone call also jumping from 15 minutes in March 2022 to more than 20 minutes by March this year.

“I think that we’re going to continue to have an unmet need in the community,” she said.

“The increase in length of calls is indicative of more complex conversations with people who were distressed.”

“Some discussions have also been about suicidal thoughts.

“Since the start of the year, we’ve been seeing a steady increase in referrals to all our support services.”

She said the type of calls they receive — all answered by qualified cancer nurses at 13 11 20 — began to change in the early days of the pandemic, and the trend has continued since then.

“We used to get the majority of our calls for people who just needed general information about cancer,” she said.

But between March 2022 and 2023, treatment and management queries made up just 14 per cent of calls, while questions about general cancer information were responsible for one in ten inquiries.

Ms Spence said cancer patients’ struggles with finances and mental health reflected existing issues in the wider community, with calls from regional areas rising by 3 per cent.

“People from rural and regional Victoria are finding it particularly challenging to access local support,” she said.

“There’s just a runaway demand for mental health services.

“It’s hard enough with the cost of living and it’s a double whammy when you get a serious illness like cancer that might mean you can’t work.

“It’s pretty quick for things to spiral out of control.”

She said Australia’s public health system doesn’t cover all costs, with gaps at general practitioner appointments, medication and travel costs – alongside a loss of work – adding up.

“We do find that for the first time sometimes people have to access Centrelink.

“(Callers ask) how do I cope? How do I make ends meet when I’ve got cancer.”