Increased cancer treatment thresholds ‘will cost patients’ lives’

PEOPLE will die as a direct result of the Government increasing the minimum population threshold needed to qualify for radiotherapy services, it was claimed last night.

Under the national cancer strategy the minimum number of people needed for a cancer unit was 420,000. However, that has now been increased to 650,000.

Fine Gael senator Maurice Cummins has accused the Government of raising the bar on radiotherapy provision for Waterford.

As the Government dithers on the matter, he said, cancer sufferers in Waterford, Kilkenny, Wexford and Carlow are dying.

Junior minister Sile De Valera said the region needs a critical masse of 650,000 people for such a service. That figure is an increase of 230,000 on the number suggested in the Hollywood Report.

Mr Cummins described the change as an insult to the people of the south-east and Waterford. “What we had was Minister De Valera reading out four pages of nonsense and raising the goalposts completely again.

“The Government is just giving the two fingers to the people of Waterford and the south-east. I pointed out to them that they will lose seats in Waterford city and county as well as Kilkenny and Wexford. They are refusing to listen to the people,” he said in an interview with WLR FM.

He said that a further insistence that such facilities be located in teaching hospitals is another U-turn.

“They are adding and changing the goalposts as they go along. They have no intention of providing radiotherapy services in Waterford. We now have the ludicrous situation where Minister Martin is saying he won’t buy in private care for public patients and Minister O’Malley and the Tánaiste differ on it. The Government is dithering while the people of Waterford and the south-east are dying,” the Senator added.

At the weekend, Tánaiste Mary Harney angered health campaigners after she said badly-needed radiotherapy services could only be rolled out across the country with the help of the private sector.

She said if the services were run by private firms, the Government would pay for patients to use them.

Independent TD Jerry Cowley, who is a member of the Cancer Care Alliance, said the proposal to privatise cancer care was an effort by the Government to silence protestors and buy back votes.