MORE than 200 riders and support crew pedalled their way through town last week as part of the Tour de Cure, with a special donation of $10,000 being made to GV Health’s Oncology department while they were here.
Starting in Sydney and finishing up in Geelong, the Tour de Cure Australia started in 2007 and since then has raised over $50M, funded 425 cancer projects, contributed to over 26 cancer advances or breakthroughs, and talked to over 120,000 school children about making healthy lifestyle decisions.
The local donation to the Peter Copulos Cancer and Wellness Centre will help go toward buying new equipment to ensure GV Health can monitor and deliver high quality care to patients in the region in having their treatments. It will also go to providing ongoing financial support by assisting with travel if patients need to outside the region for specialised tests.
GV Health Foundation director, Carmel Johnson said, “It is nice to be getting this donation. These types of donations make such a real difference and we are so grateful to be receiving it.
“It is so important to be able to support our patients, particularly those who need to travel for radiotherapy.
“We provide treatment and support services to a large catchment to around 20,000 people.
“The grant will hopefully have a component with for families who may be having financial issues with fuel, groceries etc.
“It will also go toward giving patients access to radiotherapy and clinic trials.
“Whilst we do some clinical trials here, this will allow the patients access to clinical trials that may be happening in Melbourne that we can assist with.
“GV Health is really proud and in awe of these cyclists who not only do the hard yards with the cycling but then go on to donating funding to the local towns they visit as well. It is wonderful.”
