After three decades championing the cause of cancer patients, Ann Smith Gordon is leaving PALS.

The 79-year-old is ready to take a breather — she’ll walk away from the charity’s Point Finger Road offices as soon as a replacement is found.

“I am not retiring,” she said firmly. “I don’t like the word retire. I am stepping down.

“Someone my age shouldn’t be in this position. The person who replaces me needs to be computer tech savvy. I can manage, but I really don’t know the difference between an iPad and iPod.”

Ms Smith Gordon qualified as a nurse in the 1950s, what she calls “the dark ages”.

In the 1980s she was using that training to run Contours, a medical fittings shop in Hamilton.

“Sheila Mayor, who was involved with PALS, came into Contours, and told myself and my then business partner, Margaret Tricker, about PALS,” she said. “PALS was first started in 1980 by the late Hilary Soares. She wanted to help cancer patients avoid hospitalisation and remain at home. So we joined and within a couple of months I was asked to be the chairman.”

PALS sends nurses into the homes of cancer patients to help with their care, and also helps fund medical expenses for cancer patients in need of financial help.

Ms Smith Gordon said her reason for staying with PALS for 33 years could be summed in one word: passion.

“I am proud to have been involved so intimately and for so long with what has become one of Bermuda’s most loved and trusted charities,” she said. “I have witnessed the courage of our patients and the dedication of our nurses and administrative staff, not to mention the long road we have travelled together. Our youngest patient came to PALS before she was one year old and is an inspiration to all with her outlook on life.”

PALS began advertising for an executive director last month.

Whoever replaces her needs to have compassion and caring, the charity’s outgoing president and CEO said.

“They have to be able to understand the medical side of it,” she said. “Because we are running an operation that involves $1,000,000 a year, they have to understand money. Every financial request has to be approved and considered on an individual basis. I personally interview all of our clients.”

Palliative care in Bermuda has changed a lot in 30 years, Ms Smith Gordon added.

“In the 1980s, no one was interested in dying patients,” she said. “There was a real stigma around cancer and lots of misconceptions.

“Everyone was terrified of cancer. Some people thought that you could catch cancer from a cancer patient. Patients were left really abandoned by families, in many instances. Hilary saw an opening there and she was sent to England to learn about palliative care. She came back and started PALS with a few friends who were nurses.”

Those early PALS nurses would often hide their van in the bushes or down the road from the patient’s home, because the patient felt so ashamed to have cancer. The medical community was slow to support PALS.

“We have come a long way,” said Ms Smith Gordon. “Today, many physicians have a much better understanding of palliative care. In the early days, I remember one patient asked the doctor if he could have a PALS nurse come to his home, and the doctor said, ‘Why do you need PALS when you have a wife?’”

For 13 years she ran PALS out of Contours.

“It was really an inappropriate location, but it worked,” she said. The charity moved to different locations before settling into its current home. The $1.6 million custom-designed building opened in February 2003.

PALS has grown from one nurse helping 20 patients a year, to six nurses helping as many as 140 patients a month. Its budget has also morphed from $500 to $1.6 million annually.

Ms Smith Gordon has seen the cost of cancer treatment grow and grow.

“The average cost of a single cancer medication is between $6,000 to $11,000 a month,” she said.

“There are some medications that cost as much as $36,200 a month. I had two patients in my office today who are struggling to pay for much-needed radiation treatment. They don’t have any money and they don’t have any insurance. Money shouldn’t be a reason to be denied medical care.”

Ms Smith Gordon, who will be 80 in May, admitted being a little baffled by today’s technology.

She fondly remembers the day PALS got their first fax machine several decades ago. It was considered a technical wonder.

Until that point, she had been rushing between Contours and the PALS office on Cedar Avenue. The fax machine stopped the rushing about.

In her retirement, she plans to focus more on the weekly boat tours around Somerset she gives between November and March.

“I have done that for the past 27 years and never missed a week,” she said.

Ms Smith Gordon recently fell down her front steps and broke her leg. She still managed to continue with the tours.

“They had to haul me into the boat,” she said.

She has a passion for photography and has been putting together a calendar of Bermuda vistas for several years.

“I play at it,” she said. “I don’t know any of the rules, I just take the pictures.”

She also loves to travel and is looking forward to a trip to Slovenia.

“I would hope to continue to have some involvement with PALS,” she said.

“I would like to drive patients to medical appointments and that sort of thing. I haven’t been able to see patients much recently because I have become so involved in the administrative aspects of PALS.”

Visit www.PALS.bm.