The plight of an outback Queensland couple living in a caravan park seven hours from home just to access renal dialysis has been raised in the state parliament.
Longreach couple Lyndell and Neil Pokorny are living in a small cabin at a Rockhampton caravan park so Lyndell can undergo renal dialysis treatment, which takes five hours three times a week.
Gregory MP Lachlan Millar recently tabled a petition in parliament calling for renal dialysis services in Longreach and Emerald in order to help rural patients who are stranded away from home.
"With no dialysis chair in Longreach, Lyndell and her husband Neil have been forced to lock up their home in Longreach and relocate to Rockhampton for an unspecified and unpredictable period of time," Mr Millar told the parliament.
"This means that they have both had to quit their jobs."
Lyndell and Neil are stuck in limbo, and with renal dialysis machines unlikely to come to Longreach without a major shift in state government policy, the best case scenario is to sit and wait for a kidney transplant.
Mr Pokorny said he knew of at least two or three others from Longreach in a similar position, with one patient receiving dialysis treatment in Rockhampton for the last three years.
"We know all the other people who are going through treatment here," he said.
"We are all going through the same thing.
"The number seems to be growing. I wish it wasn't."
Mr Millar also told parliament about the case of Emerald resident Ian Williams, who makes a six hour round trip to Rockhampton and back in order to receive treatment.
"It is a six-hour round trip, and Ian can only travel according to the bus schedule," Mr Millar said.
With the state budget in the pipeline, Mr Millar urged Health Minister Steven Miles to earmark funding for dialysis chairs in both Longreach and Emerald.
"As we approach the budget period I plead with the Minister for Health, Steven Miles, not to forget the constituents of Gregory and the need for renal dialysis chairs in Emerald and Longreach hospitals when he puts his funding plans together," he said.
"I ask the minister to please put his commitment behind this petition and deliver the constituents of Gregory renal dialysis, which is lifesaving treatment. It is needed in the area.
"We need to have that sort of care in regional and rural Queensland."
The petition, which was tabled in the state parliament on Wednesday night, contained 655 signatures from Mr Millar's Gregory electorate.
"This petition seeks to draw the attention of the House to the urgent need of renal dialysis services in Emerald and Longreach hospitals," the petition read.
"This is a matter of great urgency because of the hardship that the lack of services places on my constituents.
"Renal dialysis is not optional: it is an ongoing and lifesaving treatment."
