PATIENTS from West Fife who are undergoing chemotherapy will need to travel to Kirkcaldy for treatment after the closure of the Haematology Unit at Queen Margaret Hospital.

Since March 2020, the beginning of the COVID pandemic, patients were able to attend the Dunfermline facility but NHS Fife has confirmed that the ward there has now closed.

The health board says it "always intended" to return the service to Victoria Hospital, where there is a purpose-built Haematology and Oncology Day Unit.

However, for patients and their families, there are concerns about making the longer journey, sometimes multiple times a week, to receive the gruelling treatment.

One Dunfermline resident, who did not want to be named, told the Press: "I have two family members who are waiting for chemotherapy.

"For one, they can't cure her but they can maintain it, chemo is a life or death situation sometimes.

"She will go three times a week and was told two or three weeks ago that it would be six weeks waiting.

"Why does Dunfermline suffer? People need to be treated quickly, they can't cure her but the next month will make a difference in it spreading."

Claire Dobson, Director of Acute Services at NHS Fife, said that patient transport services will be made available for those otherwise unable to travel to Kirkcaldy.

She said: "In March 2020, the Haematology Unit at the Victoria Hospital moved temporarily to Queen Margaret Hospital to help protect vulnerable chemotherapy patients at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It was always intended that the service would return to the purpose-built Haematology/ Oncology Day Unit at Victoria Hospital when safe to do so.

"The return of the service to the Victoria Hospital enables treatment times to be extended into the evenings due to the availability of an emergency medical response team and allows patient to access face-to-face support from the Maggie’s Centre, which is also based at the Victoria Hospital.

"Patient transport services are available to for those otherwise unable to travel to Kirkcaldy, as there was for patients elsewhere in Fife travelling to Queen Margaret Hospital for treatment previously.

"Importantly, the return of our haematology service to the Victoria Hospital enables us to reinstate other important services, which were displaced at the start of the pandemic to facilitate the initial relocation of haematology to Queen Margaret, with antenatal services and our pain management clinics due to return to Dunfermline in the coming weeks."