Cancer patients’ transport costs would build treatment unit

HEALTH officials are spending more on transporting cancer patients from the South-East to Dublin for radiotherapy than it would cost to build a local treatment centre.

Ian Frazer, a consultant radiologist at St Luke’s Hospital in Dublin, said €1.8 million was spent each year bringing patients from the South-East to and from St Luke’s when €9m, or five year’s transport costs, would provide a permanent local unit.

Dr Frazer also said half of all terminally ill cancer patients from the region who need radiotherapy for the relief of pain or to control their symptoms were denied treatment in Dublin because they would not survive the strain of the daily 200-mile round trip. The alternative was to stay in Dublin for the five or six weeks of treatment, necessitating a stay in a B&B and a forced separation from family and other supports.