Photo: DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST

B.C. Cancer Agency in Victoria.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix announced $20 million Wednesday to help pay for travel and lodging expenses for cancer patients who must travel to receive treatment, especially those in rural and remote areas.

The Canadian Cancer Society and Hope Air are receiving $10 million each to expand existing programs. The expanded programs, expected to launch by Oct. 3, include providing grants to patients for travel expenses and matching patients with volunteer drivers.

Fees at the Canadian Cancer Society’s four lodges offering accommodation and meals for patients and their caregivers near cancer centres — in Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna and Prince George — will also be eliminated, according to the society, and lodges will be open seven days a week. Stays will also include meals, which previously cost $55 a day.

The volunteer driving program will expand into areas of Vancouver Island that are “currently under-serviced,” according to the Health Ministry. Details of which communities the program will expand into were not immediately available.

The society is also adding new supports for patients with blood cancers who require bone marrow transplants in Vancouver.

Hope Air, a national charity that provides flights, accommodations, airport and ground transportation — and meal vouchers via private-sector partnerships — for families and individuals who must travel for medical care, will also expand its services.

It will more than double accommodation nights — to 3,300 by 2026, from 1,500 in 2023 — and flights — to 2,500 by 2026, from 1,000 in 2023 — for patients in B.C. travelling to receive cancer treatment.

Hope Air will also increase the number of travel arrangements it makes to 7,500 by 2026 from 2,000 by the end of this year. About 14 per cent of those arrangements will be for children and their parents or guardians.

The two organizations have developed a plan to find the appropriate services and support for patients regardless of which organization they connect with.

On Feb. 24, the province launched a 10-year cancer action plan with an initial investment of $440 million, including $20 million to support people living in rural and remote communities who need to travel for cancer care.

The province is also adding more cancer centres throughout B.C., upgrading existing hospital space through renovation and expansion, adding new diagnostic imaging equipment and trying to hire new physicians and clinical staff.

B.C. has six B.C. Cancer Centres and 41 community oncology network sites.

“Receiving a cancer diagnosis is a life-changing event and it brings with it many stresses — personal stresses, physical stress, and emotional stress, and financial stresses,” Dix said at a news conference Wednesday in Vancouver.

“The financial burden of cancer is especially held by those who live further away from a cancer centre.”