CANCER survivor Alisanne Buck believes many patients are refusing life-saving radiotherapy treatment because they cannot face travelling to Oxford to receive it.

The 45-year-old, of Squirrel Crescent, Wootton Bassett, was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago and endured eight months of chemotherapy at Great Western Hospital.

She had a mastectomy to remove one of her breasts, but then developed an abscess which had to be operated on and took a further 10 weeks to heal.

She was then told she would have to commute to the Churchill Hospital in Oxford to undergo five weeks of radiotherapy, something she says is not acceptable for cancer patients.

“I had eight months of chemo, which I had a really bad time with, and then I had to go to Oxford every day for five weeks. It is really hard,” she said.

“It’s not just the travelling that is a problem, it is the cost of it all as well.

“Unless you have been through chemotherapy or know someone who has been through it, then you can’t imagine how awful you feel afterwards, but then to ask people to travel all that way for radiotherapy is just terrible.

“Radiotherapy itself isn’t too bad. You can get a bit sore, like sunburn, and it can be so tiring.

“If you haven’t had to go through chemo first I’m not sure what it is like, but because I did, it was awful.

“I did find it absolutely stunning that the Great Western Hospital doesn’t have its own radiotherapy department.

“It is such an awful thing to go through when you are so ill anyway.”

Alisanne or her husband drove the 70-mile round trip to Oxford for radiotherapy. She then spent a year on herceptin, a drug used to treat early stage breast cancer, and is still on tamoxifen, an anti-oestrogen drug used to fight breast cancer.

She said she knows of a woman who refused to travel to Oxford for radiotherapy.

“If there was radiotherapy here in Swindon she would have gone through with it,” she said.

“People have other commitments but this takes out your whole day. I don’t have any children to look after, but I have my five dogs.

“It affects so many people and it is something we desperately need here in Swindon.”