It's been more than a year since the man once nicknamed the ''Mayor of Dickson'' was told he almost certainly had prostate cancer and needed surgery within a fortnight.
Since then, 75-year-old Allan McFarlane, who has an intellectual disability, has suffered worsening pain and bladder problems.
His guardian, Fay Arrold, has been growing increasingly frustrated as letters periodically arrive from ACT Health to inquire if Mr McFarlane wishes to remain on the waiting list for elective surgery.
In May last year, Mr McFarlane was placed on a waiting list to have a kidney stent inserted.
He was designated a Category 2a elective surgery patient, which meant the recommended waiting time was within 90 days, although the wait is usually longer. Miss Arrold said in June a specialist at Canberra Hospital told her that Mr McFarlane needed surgery within a fortnight. ''He said he was pretty sure that [Allan] had prostate cancer and he said, 'I need to operate on him within two weeks'. We're still waiting,'' Miss Arrold said.
''You just sit and wait, but it's just starting to affect him too much now. He gets pain through the night and he's got to run to the toilet nearly every five minutes.''
A few weeks ago Mr McFarlane was forced to have a urinary bag temporarily fitted and a doctor warned that his kidneys could close down and his bladder stop functioning.
Miss Arrold, 66, has been caring for Mr McFarlane since 1978, when his father a close friend of her family passed away.
She relocated Mr McFarlane from Cooma to Canberra to live with her and for 21 years he volunteered at the St Vincent de Paul shop in Dickson, where his habit of dropping in on local shopkeepers for a chat earned him the nickname from a local retailer.
Miss Arrold is at a loss to understand why Mr McFarlane, who moved into aged-care accommodation last year, is still waiting for surgery. ''I just thought, you know, we've got lots of money to spend on bicycle paths and bits of art and things like that, but we can't get him in to have an operation.''
ACT Health said in a statement that it was unable to comment on specific cases due to privacy regulations.
For more on this story, see the print edition of today's Canberra Times.
Source: The Canberra Times
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