Having to take a flight to Gran Canaria every morning for 15 days and return that same day, with the effects that radiotherapy produces in a cancer patient and also suddenly discovering that part of the aid granted by the Health Area of the Government of the Canary Islands must be included as an expense in the income tax return, with the corresponding payment that it implies for the patient. This is the situation of many cancer patients from Lanzarote and, specifically, the one that Anabel Díaz has experienced, who has had to travel to the island to be able to continue the treatment, for which she has encountered many difficulties and expenses, as she tells La Voz. "I would give the politicians who have said no to radiotherapy in Lanzarote a week of mine, because it has been horrible," the woman says to summarize how she has experienced this process.
"If a step is going to be initiated to have radiotherapy here, it would be phenomenal." This is how Anabel values the announcement made this Wednesday by the Ministry of Health about the start of the contracting for the drafting of the project to install a radiotherapy bunker on the island, although the woman has also been skeptical about it. "I never trust these things; until I see it, I don't know," she says. Despite this glimmer of hope in the demand of the people of Lanzarote, in recent days there has been a detail that has been the last straw for Anabel. "I have to declare the subsidy for a breast prosthesis that Social Security paid me and pay taxes on it", she denounces to La Voz; an amount that amounts to 276 euros. The neighbor explains that she has a complete mastectomy, paid for the external prosthesis out of her own pocket and "4-5 months later" the Government gave her that part as aid to finance the prosthesis. "On top of that, I can't deduct the 90 or 100 euros that remain from the money that Social Security gave me and to make matters worse I have to declare those 276 euros as income", the woman complains, who assures that it has been "a surprise" when her advisor told her and that she still doesn't know what it will mean to include this expense in her declaration.
However, including the subsidy as income in the income tax return is only a small part of what these cancer patients from Lanzarote who are treated in Gran Canaria have to assume economically. "I have calculated that in the 15 days I spent about 200 euros, which I am not going to recover, apart from the tickets and everything", says Anabel, who had to go to the island for three weeks in September, facing different expenses for accommodation, food or transport that the Government of the Canary Islands does not cover. However, she explains that the Executive has financed that part of the breast prosthesis that she has to declare and the flights that she and her husband have made. However, all the expenses of her daughter when she accompanied her have been borne by her, since she is 17 years old and being a minor, legally she cannot go with her. Not only that, "since I am on sick leave, I am self-employed and I was earning 200 euros a month", but "to that you add that what you have to spend is double".
"I had a very bad time with radiotherapy"
An economic expense that cannot be compared with the physical and emotional wear and tear that this experience entails, which Anabel describes as "horrible". "I had a very bad time with radiotherapy, with a lot of vomiting, I came dehydrated twice and they sent me directly to the emergency room here", says Anabel, who adds that she lost a lot of weight. For all this, they had to suspend the treatment, "because I couldn't travel", she explains. "I remember it worse than chemo", because although this "has been horrible, I have been at home, I have been calm".
"You have to get up to go to radiotherapy at 6 or 7 in the morning, with your stomach closed, because you don't feel like eating, and you take the first plane that goes to Las Palmas, the one at 8 in the morning and that is full of patients", Anabel relates about her experience during the 15 days that she had to go to the treatment. And once you get there, "you take a bus, if you take it, because if you don't get to that bus you have to take a taxi and pay for it yourself, because Social Security doesn't pay for taxis, it only pays for the free bus", she points out as one of the first problems that cancer patients from Lanzarote encounter when they arrive in Gran Canaria. A bus ticket that was not covered either in the times that her daughter accompanied her.
Once she arrives at the hospital, Anabel assures that "you are there for a few minutes, because the sessions were 20 minutes or half an hour, I think", so then "you return, with the tiredness and fatigue that radiotherapy gives, again" to take the bus to go to the airport to take the plane. "Get on that trip, wait with the heat at the bus station, make transfers...". These are some of the difficulties that Anabel points out that patients from Lanzarote suffer in their trips to receive the treatment, although she even assures that she had "luck", because they gave her radiotherapy at the San Roque clinic, and not at the Doctor Negrín Hospital, for which you have to take two buses to get there.
"I paid 95 euros for a hotel for my daughter and me"
Another problem arises in the first radiotherapy session. In it "they tattoo your skin to center the gamma rays well where you have the tumor or where you have had the tumor" and "this test is only done at 07:30 in the morning", assures Anabel, pointing out that this is why you have to go the day before. In her case, she explains that this accommodation was not paid for by Social Security, since she had to present it together with the tickets so that they would pay her, but she could not do so because it was a double room that she shared with her daughter, to whom the Government does not finance the expenses. "I paid 95 euros for a hotel for my daughter and me", apart from the fact that you have to "eat there, have breakfast there, go to do the test and come back again". "One night is great for those who have acquaintances, but for those who don't want to bother, look at the disruption", she emphasizes.
Anabel assures that some people suggested as a solution to stay in Gran Canaria to live during the treatment. "Why do I have to stay in a house where I don't know anyone?", the woman asks, pointing out that this means having to "go to the bathroom with people you don't know, eat with people you don't know and already in a state of illness". In this sense, she points out that there are many effects that are physically noticeable when it is a disease for which "you are very delicate, you are medicating and you have your hormones messed up". "Women have their periods taken away and we start with tamoxifen, which is a drug that alters all your hormones", she emphasizes about her situation and as one of the reasons that led her not to want to move temporarily to another island during the process.
This was a personal decision, since she assures that she knows other people in her situation who have decided to live that time in Gran Canaria. Specifically, she points out that a colleague of hers stayed on the island "because her daughter came from abroad". However, she affirms that she "also had a pretty bad time", as did all the patients who went and came every day to receive the treatment.
Going for the tickets means "too much expense and disruption"
Another difficulty, which involves an additional expense, with which they find themselves in the trips to Gran Canaria is that they need to "drink water constantly both in chemo and in radiotherapy, because the tiredness is very great". "You can't take a bottle of water from your house and put it on the plane, so if you are thirsty you have to buy it at the airport, for 2.50 euros each", which is added to the return trip, "because even if you haven't drunk the whole bottle and they have given it to you at the hospital, you have to buy another one", explains the woman. For this reason, she points out that they have "an expense of 5 to 7 euros a day on water that nobody reimburses you", which must be multiplied by the 10 or 15 days of treatment.
In these trips to be able to have radiotherapy treatment, Anabel assures that she has been accompanied by her daughter and, on occasions, by her husband, because "alone it is impossible, you can't go". In the case of her daughter, who is still studying, she points out that it did not cause them so much disruption because she had not yet started classes when she had to go to Gran Canaria; while her husband, who was unemployed when she became ill, had to ask for days off when he started working. Despite this, she assures that "there has been no complaint with the company" and "it has been great", because he has been able to accompany her to Gran Canaria, in the operation and when she has been admitted for some relapse during the illness.
However, she denounces that "there are people who cannot leave their job or who are not given so many permits because it is understandable, that a company is there to work and not to be constantly asking for days off". "And I am self-employed and I understand it", she emphasizes. To that she points out the difficulty to get the tickets, because to collect them the patients have to get someone to go to the National Institute of Social Security, queue, fill out the papers... "It means too much expense and too much disruption", says Anabel.
"There is money for everything and isn't there money to put in radiotherapy?"
"It is a real disruption and a real mess to go to Las Palmas and it destroys us emotionally, at least in my case", assures Anabel, who is very critical of the position maintained until now by the Canarian Government regarding the installation of a radiotherapy unit in Lanzarote. "There is money for everything, there is money to buy a house that has cost a million euros from the Cabildo, there is money to raise the same road forty thousand million times, and isn't there money to put in radiotherapy?" she asks. And she points out the great expense that is currently made with the trips of all the people who have to receive the treatment in Gran Canaria, highlighting that this could be used to implement the unit in Lanzarote. "Really, I think that in two years they have recovered the investment, because I don't understand much about that, but it is too much expense" to have to go to another island.
Regarding her current situation, Anabel assures that she has already finished with the radiotherapy treatment and is waiting for the reconstruction, but she points out that she has to return to Gran Canaria this Tuesday, June 6, to have them see how her skin is. "It's a stupidity, a stupid waste of money, because they could see that here", but "they make you lose a day", she points out.
"Until we have a little bit of sensitivity again, this is going badly, this is going very badly" assures Anabel who recognizes that "it is a very hard disease and they could make things a little easier". "I really hope that I don't have to go through it again and that those who come have it a little easier", she concludes.
