hopefully my dad will get a chemo plan today,was wondering,he has no one except me to take him for chemo,i have to take my kids to school at 9am and pick them up at 3pm (inbetween nightshifts).and the hospital is an hour away.

my question is really about patient transport.is it for over a particular age?or people with disabilities? or would my dad,a 63 year old mobile self caring man get transport to and from the hospital?

and also how long does a chemo session last?2,3 hours?i really dont know,sorry for all the questions,but think my dad is relying on me to take him all the time,and need to know if he an get help to go without me.

Hi jacq, When your Dad gets his plan he should be able to get answers to most of your questions. In terms of how long does chemo take, it depends on the kind of chemo. It can take a few hours or it can take all day if it is intravenous. Oral chemo can be taken at home. And the number of days and weeks between also depend on the type of chemo. Transport wise, I think most hospitals have a telephone number for patient transport. If you can find that then you could phone and see if your dad would be eligible. There are department of health guidelines on who is eligible and I think it depends more on individual patient need and distance etc. rather than age etc. if you google "non emergency patient transport eligibilty department of health" you should get the criteria the hospitals use to give you an idea of whether your dad may get transport . Hopefully he could - it sounds like you would find it nearly impossible to take him with your other commitments. The Mac help line should also be able to give you some advice. Sorry there are no spaces in this ! I put them in but they vanish when I hit the publish key Hiloa

hi i was allowed hospital transport for myself and my little girl. I think we got it because of her age,the distance we had to go every day and also the amount of stress public transport would cause and also the threat of infection when immune system is not very good. we used it for months and there were people of all ages and abilities that shared our transport i think depends if he really wouldnt be able to get to treatment alone or not. I had quite a distance to travel but we sometimes shared with people only say 15 mins from the hospital 

as for how long does chemo last it does depend on which drugs you have.we were there for hours some days but on a vinchristine day only that took 5 mins so we could be out in maybe half hour to an hour 

if you can get hold of one of the hospitals booklets there is usually something in there that explains the critera i hope i have been some help and i really hope your dad responds well to treatment good luck xx