Herlinda Sanchez has been making the nearly three‐hour drive from her home in Del Rio, Texas, to San Antonio for chemotherapy treatments at Texas Oncology. Lisa Krantz for KFF Health News
Cancer infusions can last as long as eight hours on top of the travel time, causing significant financial and logistical challenges, said Erin Ercoline, executive director of the San Antonio‐based ThriveWell Cancer Foundation. The nonprofit provides adult patients with financial assistance, including for gaps in insurance and transportation‐related costs. It has helped cover gasoline for Sanchez, who received her final round of chemotherapy in late June. The financial assistance will also pay for her hotel when she travels for breast surgery in August.
Not all rural hospitals are ending chemotherapy. Childress Regional Medical Center, a 39‐bed hospital in West Texas, is constructing a 6,000‐square‐foot center for patients who need infusions for cancer and other diagnoses, including multiple sclerosis and rheumatology.
The infusion area, which started with two chairs in 2013 and now has four, will grow to 10 chairs and have more patient privacy when it opens next year. The next‐nearest infusion center in this sprawling region is an hour or more away, which discourages some patients from seeking care, said Childress ' CEO, Holly Holcomb.