'Life-changing' virtual chemotherapy helps rural cancer patients

Donna Gorman has been through chemotherapy, radiation and a double mastectomy but says it was the day-long trips to hospital that were most taxing.

"It was a big drain on myself and my family and friends to have to do that every day," Ms Gorman said.

The 55-year-old had memorised every stop sign and pothole of the drive from her regional hometown of Gatton to the nearest major hospital at Ipswich.

It was about an hour's drive but by the time she drove there, found a park, underwent treatment, and drove home, Ms Gorman said it was a full day's journey.

"When you add that to not feeling well, not having any energy, having to go through treatments … it was a huge drain on my body," she said.

That was three years ago, and things are now different for cancer patients like Ms Gorman on Brisbane's regional outskirts.

Tele-oncology units, introduced to hospitals in the West Moreton district, have allowed cancer patients to undergo treatment at their local hospitals.

Ms Gorman said the Gatton unit, which opened in March 2025, had been life-changing.

"Not having to spend that time travelling, you could spend that time focusing more on your recovery," she said.

Reaching all corners of Queensland

The Australian system of tele-oncology was developed in north Queensland out of a dire need to reach patients in rural and remote areas.

Professor Sabe Sabesan, a senior medical oncologist at the Townsville Cancer Centre, is often regarded as the pioneer of the technology.

He came across video conferencing technology after arriving in Townsville in 2006.

"We just played with it and started it as a practice in Mount Isa in partnership with the nurses and doctors there," he said.

Professor Sabesan saw how the tyranny of distances directly correlated to poorer outcomes for cancer patients.

"There were patients who didn't want to fly so they literally missed out on treatment," he said.

Professor Sabesan said what began as video consultation calls between oncologists and cancer patients had since evolved to include the actual administering of the chemo and immunotherapy drugs in the rural centre, under virtual supervision from a larger hospital.

He said there was still work to do.

He said tele-oncology needed to be formalised as a system, rather than a series of isolated projects.

"If champions and advocates have to keep advocating, that means we don't have a system in place," Professor Sabesan said.

"If we had a system, we would have had tele-chemo in Gatton five years ago."

Virtual care checklist

Clinical nurse Chelsey Reynolds runs the tele-oncology unit at the Gatton Hospital.

She said the process was streamlined but there were "a lot of moving parts".

"The patient sits in the chair and we bring in a TV that links into the oncologist at Ipswich," Ms Reynolds said.

"The oncologist reviews their bloods and asks them all the questions … then approves the treatment.

"The pharmacist in Ipswich checks [the medication], gives it to the team leader there, who will email it to me and I will print it off, and then [the pharmacist] dials in on her side to the same TV.

"She sits down at Ipswich, I sit here, and we still do our double checks."

After the lengthy "chain of requests and checks", Ms Reynolds administers the medication.

She has 13 patients around Gatton and the Lockyer Valley.

"Normally [the patients] are in and out within an hour, two hours, instead of it having to be an all-day thing," she said.

A Queensland Health spokesperson said between May 2025 and April 2026, there had been almost 15,000 tele-oncology consultations across 23 facilities.

"While not every oncology appointment is clinically appropriate for virtual care, this service is available to patients of every hospital and health service," the spokesperson said.

They said Queensland Health was working with the services to look at new opportunities to improve services.

More time to recover

Patients have saved a combined total of 2,765 kilometres of travel since the Gatton unit started operating over a year ago, according to West Moreton Health.

That is about the same distance as the crow flies from Gatton to Darwin.

Ms Gorman said that meant an appointment that used to swallow six hours of her day now took an hour and a half.

"That's time that I could spend with my family and time I could spend going back to work," Ms Gorman said.

"It's helped with my anxiety."

While she still made the drive to Ipswich Hospital every six months for an oncology check-up, she said the travel was no longer ruling her recovery.

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