Medical expert condemns the distances travelled by cancer victims for treatment

THE benefit of cancer treatment is being outweighed by the arduous journeys patients are having to make to get it, a medical expert said yesterday.

Dr Ian Fraser, a consultant in radiotherapy at St Luke’s Hospital, said he had seen patients who had died partially as a result of travelling to Dublin for treatment: “We see patients making a huge commitment for two hours’ treatment. One woman was away from her family and home for 500 hours.”

The cancer specialist is one of a number of doctors, trade unionists, politicians and support groups who have joined forced to secure a realistic budget for cancer care.

The campaign is being co-ordinated by Independent TD Jerry Crowley who is urging families throughout the country to join a demonstration in Dublin later this month aimed at closing the gap between what modern cancer medicine can achieve and the actual treatment that patients receive.

More than half of the cancer patients treated at St Luke’s have to travel for treatment. Dr Fraser said it took 12 weeks for public health cancer patients to get post-operative radiation treatment: “I have one lady under my care at the moment for whom treatment came too late and the disease has recurred.” The woman’s prognosis has been significantly impaired by the delay.

Dr Fraser said he was responsible for about 600,000 people in this country. “We have fewer consultants in the Republic than in Northern Ireland. They have 12, we have eight.”

Ideally, he said, Ireland should have at least 21 consultants to treat the 7,500 cancer patients who require radiotherapy. He warned that the situation was going to get worse with more cancers developing in the elderly population. The doctor said he was treating a young woman who was dying of cancer. Her husband left her hospital bed at 3am yesterday morning to look after his two children at home in Waterford: “This woman is gravely ill and her husband is trying to commute up and down the country.”

He reckoned that the South Eastern Health Board was spending up to €36 million over a 10-year period bringing patients to Dublin for treatment.

“These patients are away from their families at the very time that they need them most,” he said.

A cancer treatment unit in Waterford would cost less than what it would cost to transport patients to Dublin and pay for their hotel bills. Referring to the Government’s long-awaited report on radiotherapy services, Dr Fraser said he could not understand why it took three years to work out what the needs were: “It is not a question of money it is a question of management and political will.” Dr Fraser said regional cancer treatment centres could scan the patients and use modern technology to transfer the information for assessment.

“So the information travels rather than the patient.”

Meanwhile, families are being urged to march in Dublin on Saturday, March 29, to ensure a realistic budget for cancer care.

The march will start at 1pm at Parnell Square and proceed down O’Connell Street, ending at Government Buildings.

Every week more than 300 families are affected by a cancer diagnosis.

One in three people will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime and one in four will die from the disease.

Almost halve of those diagnosed with cancer are unable to get radiotherapy, while those who do receive treatment have to wait a minimum of three months.

Death from breast cancer could be reduced by up to a third with a national breast screening programme, yet Ireland’s Breastcheck programme has yet to be fully rolled out.