New car to help prostate health

WHAT started out as a few guys riding postie bikes about the place has turned into a major men’s health campaign.

Known as the Male Bag Foundation, the effort recently resulted in the donation of a car to help get patients into the Base Hospital for prostate cancer tests.

AFL great and prostate cancer survivor, David Parkin, is the organisation’s patron and he was at Ballarat Health Service for the official handover of a new Nissan X Trail last Friday.

“A couple of blokes decided to ride across Australia on postie’s motorbikes five, six, years ago and that became a group of 30,” he said.

“I rode across on learners plates, but these blokes raised half-a-million dollars from Perth to Melbourne and gave it to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.”

The money was subsequently used on providing less invasive prostate cancer testing in regional areas.

Previously a more invasive transrectal biopsy was only available in the capital cities. As a result of Mail Bag’s efforts, there are now nine transperineal biopsy devices in regional centres like Ballarat.

“The only place you could do biopsies in those days was in public hospitals in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, places like that,” Mr Parkin said. “They were done though the bowel and every third of fourth person got an infection.

“The transperineal machine goes around the outside to get exactly the same result. We decided that we had to help men in rural and regional Australia, and it just happened that Ballarat was the first connection and choice. We put a transperineal machine into Ballarat and it’s done hundreds and hundreds of tests now with minimal chance of getting an infection but getting the same result.”

The better tests weren’t enough though. Patients requiring the improved transperineal biopsies still needed to get to BHS for the procedure.

When undergoing the test, patients were unable to drive themselves there and back and many didn’t have decent transport options in the first place.

That’s where Mail Bag member and namesake of the Nissan dealership on the corner of Creswick Road and Howitt Street, Wendouree, Peter Stevens and his family stepped in.

Mr Stevens had recently sold out of the business that bares his name, but was still keen to help out.

“Ballarat Health Service have been wanting to get a vehicle for a couple of years to bring the patients in for treatment,” he said. “The Stevens family as a whole decided to make a donation to the Mail Bag Foundation and they in turn have bought the vehicle and handed it over today.”

As the challenge of prostate cancer is ongoing, so is the effort of Mail Bag to provide transperineal biopsy machines to regional and rural patients.

Mr Parkin said the next place they were targeting was Geelong.

“Would you believe Geelong still haven’t got one of these machines?” he said. “This year we’re riding in October around the Bellarine and that area to help raise the funds that they need to buy that machine.”