Hair Today AND Tomorrow has been put together by Dr Joanna Prendergast, a doctor/psychiatrist in New Zealand. Joanna found there was a gap in information about cold capping in New Zealand and other ways to reduce chemotherapy side-effects. This website contains the information Joanna wished she had during her own breast cancer treatment in 2021.

As a psychiatrist, Joanna also found that there was a lack of information about how cold-capping and chemotherapy hair loss affects mental health. Also very little easily accessible information about looking after mental health during chemotherapy.

Joanna wants to increase awareness about cold capping in New Zealand, as both a psychiatrist and a patient-advocate. At the time of writing, there were only six scalp cooling machines in the whole country, and only two of those were in public hospitals. Joanna hopes this website will increase knowledge about cold capping, for both cancer patients and health professionals.

New Zealand is fortunate to have a Breast Cancer Foundation that has fund-raised $500k for cold capping machines in public hospitals. The majority of these machines have not yet been accepted by chemotherapy units. Joanna hopes that financial support can be offered to provide affordable cold capping for all New Zealand chemotherapy patients, in the way that charities offer cold cap funding overseas.

Joanna hopes this website’s research study information and personal stories will encourage oncology services to provide the option of cold capping in all New Zealand hospitals.