Cancer diagnoses come with a whole range of worries, from physical to emotional – but the financial burden placed on individuals can often be overlooked.

That's according to CEO of the Irish Cancer Society Averil Power.

She told Moncrieff that stacking costs can force patients to restructure their lives.

Ms Power said a family can lose about €1,500 in monthly income due to a cancer diagnosis.

“At the same time, they’re hit with additional costs of over €8,000 per annum and that’s for things like transport to and from your hospital appointments, medicines, wigs, parking, childcare – a whole host of extra things," she said.

“When we think of cancer, what comes to mind is the physical and emotional impact and I think those not going through cancer don’t realise that there’s also a huge financial impact that puts people under enormous pressure at a time when they’re sick.

“That can also lead to people taking out loan, deferring their mortgages, having to cut back on extracurricular activities for their kids so that they can pay for their own medication.”

JE1BM5 Bognor Regis, West Sussex, UK. Free blood testing for men to see if they are at risk from prostate cancer at The Salvation Army Hall in Bognor Regis,

Ms Power also said that there is a ’postcode lottery’ system when it comes to parking costs.

“There are 27 hospitals where people get cancer treatment across the country,” she said.

“12 of the 27, when we last looked at this, are free. Five out of the 27 had concessions – so, they might have a daily or a weekly cap for cancer patients and 10 had no specific concessions.

“In some of those hospitals, you could be paying over €3 an hour for your parking.

“Obviously that puts enormous pressure on people, but we’ve also had patients tell us that they had situations like one woman who was on to us, who said that she’d spent €1,000 on parking alone while receiving her treatment in Dublin.”

'No longer a life sentence'

According to Ms Power, while some positive changed have been implemented over the years, there is still a lot of work needed to be done.

“Thankfully, [cancer] is no longer the life sentence it once was,” she said.

“We’ve gone from four in 10 people surviving cancer 30 years ago to over six in 10 now.

“For some cancers it’s over nine in 10 – breast cancer, prostate cancer, testicular cancer – which is amazing.

“But as a result of all that there are now about 225,000 people in Ireland who are survivors – which is amazing that more people are surviving, but we want the quality of that survivorship to be good.”

Ms Power said people should not be left with loans or debts or turned away from mortgages just because they had cancer.

Listen back here:

Main image: Split image showing a person counting coins (L) and a woman in cancer treatment (R).