A PUBLIC rally on Wodonga’s Gateway Island later this month will send a clear message to all political parties that Border residents want to know how they will provide cancer care for the next generation.
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Convenors of the rally, Eric Turner and Jenny Black, said the Sunday, August 29 event would bring together 1400 people in the shape of a heart that would be photographed from the air.
Mr Turner said those 1400 people would represent the number of those people diagnosed each year on the Border with a life-threatening cancer, representing “the feelings and emotions of a community that are felt from the heart”.
“Is what we have today adequate for what the needs will be in future?”
The rally comes two months after more than 17,000 signatures were delivered to the Labor government in Canberra, expressing the Border community’s anger at failing to receive funding for development of a regional cancer centre in Albury-Wodonga.
“We will not be moved or pushed aside; as a caring community we will continue to remind our politicians that our large regional area will not be overlooked as an area that desperately needs a regional integrated cancer centre to provide essential care for our growing population,” Mrs Black said.
“The photograph will say loud and clear to our ministers, ‘What about us?’.”
Invitations to the rally, that will begin at 10am on August 29 and run for one hour, have been extended throughout the Border community and to other centres in the North East and southern Riverina.
Mr Turner said to date, there had been confirmation of a busload of participants from Corowa and inquiries from as far afield as Myrtleford.
He urged those wanting to attend to register online at bordermail.com.au, to ensure organisers reach their target of 1400 participants.
