Program brings healing touch to homes

by Soren Velice

Point Roberts cancer patients have a new therapy available to them, thanks to an outreach program at St. Joseph Hospital’s Community Cancer Center.

The Center has offered a free massage program for about two years, but patients had to drive to Bellingham to take advantage of it. “If somebody from Point Roberts is undergoing cancer treatment, it’s already a long haul into Bellingham,” said Point Roberts massage therapist Gina Ball. “If they feel they want a massage, now they don’t have to go to Bellingham for it.”

That changed several months ago, when the center’s director, Karen Ssebanakitta, started an outreach program for Whatcom County’s outlying communities. “The cancer center sent letters to all the licensed massage therapists in Whatcom County to see if they’d like to participate,” Ball said. “Patients just ask the receptionist at the center and tell her where they’re from, and she’ll set it up. They give out my card, the patient gives me a call and I set them up.”

The program is available free of charge to all cancer patients with approval from their doctors; the massages are provided by massage therapists who chose to donate their time. Cancer center librarian Julie Keefover said the patients’ response to has been largely positive. “It increases relaxation for them,” she said. “It’s made to reduce stress for someone that’s in a very stressful situation.”

Anyone interested in the program can call the Community Cancer Center at 738-6701.

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