'It's devastating': B.C. cancer patient faces 8-hour ferry trips on long journey for chemo

A B.C. senior with cancer will soon have to take an eight-hour ferry ride each time she needs treatment. 

The ferry is part of a longer journey the cancer patient will take repeatedly over the next year to get the intensive intravenous chemotherapy she needs twice a week.

And Carol Ives, 75, is not alone.

All cancer patients on Haida Gwaii will lose IV chemo treatments starting June 21.

"It's devastating, really," said Ives, who has lived on Haida Gwaii for 44 years. "It's hard on us."

'It's very heartbreaking'

Northern Health says it doesn't have the pharmacy technician needed to mix the drug cocktails for IV chemo.

"It's very concerning to us, but we don't have alternative safe chemotherapy delivery at this point," said Dr. Jaco Fourie, Northern Health's northwest medical director and the medical lead for Northern Health Cancer Care.

That means Ives, a great grandmother, will have to leave home repeatedly over the next year to travel to a hospital that can deliver IV chemo.

"It's very heartbreaking. I have a big garden and chickens — it's my home," said Ives​​​​, who is retired, but still works as an on-call teacher and aide in local schools. 

Now, for the next year, Ives will have to travel from Haida Gwaii to Kitimat each month, where she can stay with her daughter while she gets twice weekly intravenous chemotherapy for three weeks in a row.

The 10-hour trip to Kitimat includes a two-hour drive and an eight-hour ferry ride across the North Coast's often stormy Hecate Strait.   

Chemo patients with nausea face 8-hour ferry trip

"There are cancer patients here that I've talked to who are really upset. If they have to get right back on the ferry [after chemo] they would rather be home in their bed," said Ives. "If they have nausea or dizziness ... they've got to cope with it."

Ives worries more about her treatment being delayed by ferry cancellations from storms or mechanical problems. She also worries summer ferries she needs to travel on may book up with tourist traffic, and winter ferries offer a reduced sailing schedule.

'I was never going to get cancer'

"When I moved to Haida Gwaii 44 years ago, I was young and of course, I was never going to get cancer," she said. "Nobody in my family ever got cancer so I didn't really see that on my radar." 

Decades ago, Ives remembers fundraisers on Haida Gwaii for people who had to go off island for cancer treatment.

"At that time, most people went to Vancouver, and it was very expensive to stay down there, and they would leave their home here and go down for, you know, several months."

"But once they started doing chemo here on Haida Gwaii, it was like this huge breakthrough," she said. 

Ives said for patients with a potentially terminal illness, it's vital to preserve their quality of life by providing treatment close to home.

"I get quite emotional about it," she said.