Thanks to Soroptimist International of Friday Harbor
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Soroptimist International of Friday Harbor (SIFRI) assists San Juan Island residents who require trips to the mainland for cancer treatment with its Cancer Transportation Fund. The San Juan Eagles is a convocation of local pilots that SIFRI calls upon to get patients to their appointments.
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The San Juan Eagles, established in 2002, are dedicated to providing personalized air transportation to assist ambulatory patients with cancer in gaining access to mainland medical facilities. Flights are made year round, subject to weather restrictions, from San Juan Island to and from the mainland on a voluntary basis without charge. Our goal is to help patients with cancer deal with the burdens of treatment and improve the quality of life over the course of their treatments.
Typical flights are to either Bellingham or Skagit Bayview airports, each just 20-25 minutes by air, where courtesy cars are available for patients to drive (or being driven by their pilots) to nearby cancer treatment centers (usually another 20 minutes or so). Patients with breast or prostate cancer usually need about six weeks of radiation treatment, on a Monday through Friday basis. If they were to take the ferry and drive round trip each day, that would be an all-day effort. Multiplied times 40-plus treatments, that becomes a major burden for patients who are already struggling to deal with their disease.
The volume of patient needs and participating pilots have varied over the years, but for the most part, up to 200 flights have been made each year by pilots donating their time and airplanes for this purpose. Most days are flyable, but the Soroptomists have provided backup ferry tickets for those days when patients need to take the ferry because of bad weather.
Typical flights are to either Bellingham or Skagit Bayview airports, each just 20-25 minutes by air, where courtesy cars are available for patients to drive (or being driven by their pilots) to nearby cancer treatment centers (usually another 20 minutes or so). Patients with breast or prostate cancer usually need about six weeks of radiation treatment, on a Monday through Friday basis. If they were to take the ferry and drive round trip each day, that would be an all-day effort. Multiplied times 40-plus treatments, that becomes a major burden for patients who are already struggling to deal with their disease.
The volume of patient needs and participating pilots have varied over the years, but for the most part, up to 200 flights have been made each year by pilots donating their time and airplanes for this purpose. Most days are flyable, but the Soroptomists have provided backup ferry tickets for those days when patients need to take the ferry because of bad weather.