Transferred cancer patients 'dying in under 24 hours'
Ian Frazer, a consultant radiologist at St Luke's Hospital in Dublin, said these seriously ill patients were entitled to pain-control radiotherapy as a form of palliative care, describing the lack of facilities closer to home as "a very serious deficit in service".
"Sometimes patients deteriorate in the time between being referred and going for radiotherapy and we subsequently learn they have died shortly after having treatment," he said.
"I have learned of patients who have succumbed within 24 hours and in those cases we realise it was a mistake to treat them as the cost outweighed the benefit," he said.
Around 250 patients from the south-east who travel to St Luke's hospital for radiotherapy seek treatment to ease the pain of a tumour.
"These patients are being driven around Ireland in ambulances, it's very tiring; they were going to die anyway, but they simply got worn out by the whole ordeal," he said.
Mr Frazer described a recent case where a girl with a neck tumour was placed at serious risk while travelling from Wexford to Dublin for radiotherapy. "She had to be watched carefully as there was a risk her neck could 'give in'," he said.
Mr Frazer has claimed the cost of building a permanent radiotherapy facility in Waterford is substantially less than the cost of transporting patients to Dublin and Cork for treatment.
His comments came on the day a leaked document by the Government's main advisory body on cancer care stated oncology services should be centralised to regional and supra-regional centres.
The document by the National Cancer Forum noted some hospitals see too few people and the difference in treatment and survival outcomes for patients varies greatly depending on where people lives.
It also concurred with the Hollywood report, which recommended radiotherapy services be limited to Galway, Cork and two centres in Dublin. It further suggested smaller hospitals could seek accreditation to maintain specialist skills and facilities for cancer care.
"You can't cherry pick from international evidence," Jane Bailey, spokesperson for the Cancer Care Alliance said yesterday.
"A full multidisciplinary cancer service, offering best outcome for all cancer patients must be available on a regional basis, given that it affects one in three of our population," she said.
A Department of Health spokesperson said the advisory group had not presented any final conclusions regarding the national cancer strategy due to be finalised before the end of the year.
