"Everyone would benefit from a treatment unit in Limerick."
“It was a nightmare experience. My family were 120 miles away during the most horrific ordeal in our lives,” she said.
Lilly, who lives in Glasgow Park, Roxboro, Limerick, can’t understand why there’s no radiotherapy unit in the city hospital.
Instead, people in the mid-west suffering from lethal forms of cancer have to travel three hours to get treatment, said Ms Wallace. “I stayed in the Mater Private Hospital for six weeks; it would be so much better for patients if they were near home.”
Some of Lilly’s radium treatment could only be administered in the Bons Secours hospital in Eccles Street, Dublin.
“I had to get a taxi every day for a week from the Mater to Eccles Street. Going back to another hospital in the evening wasn’t easy. If there were treatment facilities in the Regional in Limerick, I could have gone home every day.” When Lilly was diagnosed with the illness, her youngest son Jeffery was only 12. “It’s extremely tough on the family and it’s an experience I don’t want anyone to endure again,” said Ms Wallace.
“I was lucky to have brothers and sisters who were able to come up and down to see me, but many people are not that fortunate.” The long road to Dublin for treatment is continuing for hundreds of people in the region, according to Ms Wallace.
“I know a woman who had an operation for breast cancer a few days ago.
“She will have to leave home and go to Dublin for treatment now,” she said.
Ms Wallace, who is an independent councillor on Limerick City Council, still regularly travels to the capital for check-ups. “I have to go up for scans and this is something that could be done here if the Government wanted it,” she said.
Ms Wallace has lobbied the locally-based Junior Health Minister Tim O’Malley to back a radiotherapy centre for Limerick.
“What’s happening makes no sense and everyone would benefit from a treatment unit here,” Ms Wallace added.
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