Solaris Cancer Care

The primary reason patients come to Solaris Cancer Care is to access physical, emotional and practical support. Patients and carers also access complementary and wellness supportive services. To ensure safe and appropriate management of these appointments it was necessary to have a tailored and efficient booking system for patients and carers across our five centres.

Your Dry July fundraising enable Solaris to provide a client booking system. This upgrade enabled our volunteers to book and track client appointments, therapy attendance, and communicate with clients on therapies such as massage and counselling they would like follow-ups on.

Our aim is to help individuals with cancer, their families and carers live well. The funds you have raised will enable anyone affected by cancer across WA to book and access the support they need.

Our clients have reported finding the booking system easy to use. Thank you for helping make that possible.

Gillian decided to participate in Dry July this year in response to a fundraising call for Solaris Cancer Care.

“The funding we received in the past from the Dry July Foundation is shared across our centres. Last year, the Albany centre received a much needed computer upgrade” she said.

“Every little bit helps, just the price of a cup of coffee goes towards helping our community provide the essential services we are known for.”

Elise Tyrie’s family has had multiple experiences with cancer. This year, Elise decided to go dry to support Solaris Cancer Care for the free evidence-based supportive services it offers to many families, including hers.  

Watch Elise's full story here: https://www.dryjuly.com/2021/elises-story! 

With your aid, we have managed to upgrade our patient booking system and replace the computers, screens, keyboard and mouse for our Meet and Greet volunteers to make the patient booking system more seamless. These upgrades have enabled our compassionate volunteers to book and track client appointments, therapy attendance, and communicate with clients on therapies such as massage and Bowen Therapy they would like follow-ups on.

Our aim is to help individuals with cancer, their families and carers live well. Thank you for helping us blend humanity with healthcare.

I am a cancer patient survivor. I was diagnosed with stage one grade three aggressive cancer on April 21, 2020, right at the time of the COVID lockdown.

During my chemotherapy treatments, I was feeling very disconnected from the people and things I love. Music and singing being one of them.

Solaris offered me the opportunity to feel safe during that compromised immune time. It was a time when I also had lots of questions about “Why me?” but did not want to feel sorry for myself. I just wanted to get my big girl knickers on and kept moving forward towards a healthy me.

I first came to Sing for Joy – Solaris’s weekly musical choir – and I have to say how much it pushed me from my comfort zone. I got lost on the way, I was late. As I arrived, the next song James (the choir leader) began to play was James Taylor’s “I always thought I would see you again.” As I began to sing, the floodgate of tears came, and it took a couple of songs before I could join in.

Coming to Solaris gave me the confidence for several months to be with people I did not know and have some nurturing healing of many modalities. I also did a pre-workshop for drumbeat and am now enrolled to teach it at my school. I will be forever grateful for the experiences at Solaris Cottesloe at a time when I needed human contact and connection – that is what it has provided for me.