PRIORITISE your own health while also supporting the wellbeing of people with cancer by taking on the Dry July challenge for Bendigo Health.<\/p>\n
The organisation is calling on members of the public and businesses to ditch the drink next month and nominate the health service as their beneficiary to raise money for the Gobb\u00e9 Wellness Centre.<\/p>\n
Manager of fundraising and foundation at Bendigo Health Rachel Mason said members of the public and businesses can make a real difference by joining the campaign.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a dedicated cancer facility and cancer centre we are given a beneficiary status and what that means is we just want people to actually nominate Bendigo Health when they sign up and that ensures that the money is dedicated to our wonderful cancer wellness program at the Gobb\u00e9 Wellness Centre,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter if its $20 or $2000, every donation will make a difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might cost us $60 to pay someone to provide a specialist oncology massage so if someone receives a donation of $60, you\u2019re paying it forward to help out a person locally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ms Mason said further funding can also be granted by Dry July following their assessment of campaign involvement, with a massive community effort last year resulting in enough money raised to establish the centre ahead of schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year the community itself through the campaign raised $77,000 which was amazing, then we had a little bit of magic happen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a mystery donor donate $100,000 to the appeal and then Dry July came in on top of that and gave us another $50,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith those funds we then went out and made this place become a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
The centre provides four main complimentary therapies, yoga, reflexology, mindfulness and oncology massage, to cancer patients alongside their medical treatment, with other services also available according to cancer wellness coordinator and oncology nurse Jenna Sing.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of complications that come with any cancer treatment whether that\u2019s chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiotherapy where patients have a lot of toxicities,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey suffer a huge amount of mental health strain with a cancer diagnosis so essentially the complimentary therapies are aligned to work with traditional medicine\u2026 to alleviate some of the toxicities and also help with their wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Hunter has bowel cancer in the perineum and visited the centre for the first-time last Friday for reflexology to treat the peripheral neuropathy, or damaged nerves, in his feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just wonderful, unbelievable,\u201d he said. \u201cThe nurses are just brilliant, they\u2019re just beautiful people and they just try to help you with everything they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Money raised during this year\u2019s Dry July campaign will go towards expanding services and ensuring they can be delivered into the future as the centre is not covered by normal hospital funding streams.<\/p>\n