Clinic to give cancer care to public patients

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern brought a double dose of good news to Waterford yesterday — confirming that public patients will receive radiotherapy treatment at a new private clinic and vowing to support university status for Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).

Treatment to public cancer patients is dependent on the Whitfield Clinic meeting the requirements of the national guidelines for public radiotherapy provision.

“The negotiations with Whitfield are going well. The HSE has been in contact with its management. Their medical guidelines are being considered to see if they comply. We all want to see agreement found on this and we look forward to public patients receiving radiotherapy at Whitfield.

“The Government through the hospital treatment fund have been using private hospitals more. I hope that this can happen at Whitfield, if they can work out these guidelines.”

Dr Jeff Shogan of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, the group providing radiotherapy at Whitfield, said they hope to be in a position to welcome public patients for radiotherapy from the middle of November.

“We hope to be able to work this out over the coming weeks. Some of the issues revolve around having a second linear accelerator in place. We believe we will be able to work something out. We are pretty comfortable with where things are and can work things out over the coming several weeks,” he said.

The HSE said in a statement it welcomes the availability of radiotherapy services within the private sector for public cancer patients in the south-east.

“We would emphasise, however, that we will consider entering into agreement only with radiotherapy centres, either public or private, that meet each of the requirements of the national guidelines for public radiotherapy provision; and which co-operate with the national radiotherapy plan.

Meanwhile, arriving at Waterford Institute of Technology earlier yesterday, Mr Ahern said he fully supports WIT in its bid for university status. “The government, I’m sure will give this application its approval. Then it will go to independent evaluation by an international group. These things are not overnight decisions.”