PDs propose privatisation of cancer care

PLANS by the Progressive Democrats to privatise cancer services have angered health campaigners.

Tánaiste Mary Harney insisted at the weekend that badly needed radiotherapy services could only be rolled out across the country if the help of the private sector was involved.

“We must allow radiation services to be run by the private sector and then pay for patients to use them,” the leader of the Progressive Democrats declared.

Labour Senator, Kathleen O'Meara, who heads the Health Services Action Group, said Ms Harney's proposal really showed the thinking of the Government in terms of health care provision.

“It is the Thatcherisation of health care provision. Unless private investment is available to provide a health service, then we don't get one,” she said.

Senator O'Meara believes access to health care is a right, not something that depends on whether a private investor is prepared to come up with the euros.

“It is the ideological thinking of the Progressive Democrats to offload services like health care onto the private sector and force people to pay for it themselves rather than have the State provide it.”

Independent TD Jerry Cowley, who is a member of the Cancer Care Alliance, said the proposal to privatise cancer care was an effort by the Government to silence protesters and win back votes.

It made more economic sense for Waterford Regional Hospital to have a radiotherapy unit so that patients avoided the time, trouble and expense involved in getting the treatment to increase their survival rate by 20%. “Why let the private sector make money out of providing the same service?” he asked.

Waterford County Council recently gave the go-ahead for a new private hospital on the edge of the city that will include private radiotherapy services.

There are also plans to establish a private cancer treatment centre in the grounds of Limerick Regional Hospital.

A recent Government-backed review of the State’s radiotherapy service urged the development of three centres of excellence for the treatment of cancer in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

While the Government has said consideration should be given to developing satellite centres at Waterford, Limerick and the north-west, no firm commitment has been given.

Just days before the last elections thousands of people marched through Waterford City to highlight the Government's failure to provide an €8 million radiotherapy unit for cancer patients at Waterford Regional Hospital.

As a direct result, Fianna Fail lost six seats in Waterford - two on Waterford city Council and four on Waterford county Council, while the Progressive Democrats lost their only seat on Waterford City Council and their only seat on Tramore Town Council.