By Brendan Rees
A Berwick cancer victim’s campaign to raise money for clinical cancer trials has received a much-welcomed boost, after Commonwealth Bank donated $10000 to the cause.
Effie Atkins began a Dr Hope campaign last year which raises community support to increase the number patients participating in trials of potentially life-saving cancer drugs in the south east.
Staff from Commonwealth Bank in Berwick presented Ms Atkins and her husband Tony Atkins with a $10000 cheque at Monash Hospital on Friday 20 July.
Ms Atkins said the donation was a generous gift: “With this grant we have now raised over $90000 in the past nine months.”
“Mr Andrew Russell and his team at Commonwealth Bank in Berwick have been really wonderful supporters of our campaign over the past year,” Ms Atkins said.
“They saw an unmet need that may affect every one of us. Some day we may have a mother or sister with cancer, and for whom all standard treatments have failed.”
Ms Atkins said funds raised will go towards placing another “Clinical Fellow” on the front lines caring for and supervising suitable patients in such trials at Monash Health in Clayton.
“In my case my untreatable liver cancer has now been kept dormant for over two years by a ‘trial’ medication.”
“I am so encouraged by the CBA gift, I am feeling my batteries re-charged to raise more funds in the coming year,” she added.
A High Tea fundraiser will be held in on Sunday 28 October followed by a Masquerade Ball on 5 April 2019.
