Children with cancer turned away from hospital

CHILDREN in need of chemotherapy have been turned away from Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children because of bed and staff shortages.

The Crumlin hospital, which is the national referral centre for the most serious childhood conditions, has had to turn away up to six children a week on occasions.

Director of Haematology and Oncology at the hospital, Dr Fin Breatnach said there was evidence to show delaying chemotherapy affected the treatment outcome.

“That possibility has to exist. There is data to show that if doses are not administered when recommended, the outcome is not as good,” he said.

He said between five and six children per week had been turned away on a number of occasions in January and February of this year; that the situation had improved in March and April, but difficulties were again beginning to emerge.

He said while they accepted every child referred to them, some had to wait for treatment beyond the time recommended in international protocols adopted by the hospital.

“The worse case scenario is deferring treatment for up to six children in a week, with a maximum delay of five to six days. But we try to make sure that if a child has chemo deferred, that the same child is not penalised a second time if the need arises again to defer treatments,” he said.

Dr Breatnach said the hospital, built in the 1940s, was in dire need of redevelopment.

In its cancer unit alone, it deals with up to 2,600 admissions annually, yet has only a 19-bed ward and a six-bed daycare unit.

Dr Breatnach said a doubling of space was required, yet despite prolonged talks with the Eastern Regional Health Authority (ERHA) nothing had been done.

Dr Breatnach and five other consultants at the hospital are due to move into a single portacabin in an effort to increase clinical space.

Twenty-five beds at the hospital have already been closed this year due to financial pressures.

A report which looked at the hospital’s infrastructure, published earlier this year, was critical of facilities and space pressures throughout the hospital and called for its urgent redevelopment.

Yesterday, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, who visited the hospital, criticised the Government for failing to invest in its redevelopment.

He said: “When it comes to public health this Government is a disgrace and a liability. I ask the Taoiseach and his minister: ‘In Ireland 2003, why do they place such little priority on children’s health?’”

The New Crumlin Hospital group, consisting of parents whose children are regularly treated at the hospital, said the difficulties experienced in the cancer unit were replicated throughout the hospital.

A spokesman for Health Minister Micheál Martin said work on the preparation of the development brief for the hospital had begun and was expected to be completed by the end of 2003.

However, Mr Kenny said it was time the Government published a timetable for the overall development of the hospital, earmarked to be a centre for excellence in Tertiary Paediatric Care by 2009.