Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski has returned to work after successful treatment for stage 4 cancer with a simple message for everybody – if you think something is wrong, keep asking questions.
Gollschewski told 4BC this morning he first learnt of his stage 4 cancer diagnosis when he was with Police Minister Dan Purdie in Townsville, just before an induction of new officers.
Queensland Police Commissioner Steve Gollschewski is back at work after a stage-four cancer diagnosis.Credit: Matt Denien
Despite the shock, that induction ceremony went ahead.
“I’m was disappointing those young people or their families, so we went through that and I grabbed Dan afterwards and said, ‘I’ve got to talk to you’,” he said.
“[I] gave him the news, because I knew it was metastasised and spread to three places at that stage, and it was very serious.”
Because Gollschewski did not have any symptoms other than fatigue, his cancer could have been caught much later, by when it would have been too late.
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“My message to everyone out there is, if you know something’s wrong, you feel it’s not right, don’t give up – just keep going until you get the answers you need,” he said.
Gollschewski said while he was in remission, he was not cured – the commissioner faced a lifelong regime of treatment to keep the cancer at bay.
And he still had unfinished business to get to as Queensland’s top cop.
“I believe in this organisation and I stood up in front of all of them before I got sick and gave them an undertaking that I would do everything in my power to make sure that they were better supported at the front line,” he said.
“That they had the equipment that they needed, that we, as an organisation, were going to support them and that we would have a safer community.
“I’m not going to walk out the door until we get that underway.”
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