North-west brings cancer services fight to capital

IT WAS the banner that read “Death by Geography” that best summed up how about 250 people from the north-west of the country felt yesterday when they protested outside Leinster House against the planned downgrading of cancer treatment services at Sligo General Hospital.

And another banner showing the proposed eight cancer specialist centres and a line drawn from Dublin to Galway illustrated how they felt left out of the cancer services reorganisation plan.

Under the plan, cancer treatment services at Sligo General Hospital are to be transferred to Galway University Hospital, resulting in hundreds of cancer patients living in the north west having to face a four to five hour round trip for treatment in Galway.

Protester Eamon Deignan from Sligo said a close relative of his — now deceased — had to travel 15km from his home to Sligo General Treatment for treatment.

“He had to lie down in the back of the car during the journey. He was that sick. If I was as sick as that man, and had to travel to Galway for treatment, I would rather stay home and die,” he said.

Campaign member Anne McGowan from Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, who is recovering from breast cancer, said it was very sad that cancer patients from the north-west had to take to the streets of Dublin to get the vital treatment they needed to keep them alive.

“There is a banner in front of me saying ‘Death by Geography’. That is exactly what we are dealing with today,” she said.

Local TD and junior health minister Dr Jimmy Devins told protesters that he was totally committed to maintaining cancer services at Sligo General. “People of the north-west deserve the best, and it is my belief they have the best.”

Dr Devins said he was delighted that director of the National Cancer Control Programme Dr Tom Keane had accepted his invitation to inspect facilities at Sligo General.

Dr Devins, who has asked for an independent audit of services of the hospital, said he was sure it would show that services should be retained and developed.

One of the organisers, Donegal county councillor Barry O’Neill (FG), said the north-west should not be ignored, particularly when there were very good services at Sligo General.

Fine Gael’s spokesman on health, Dr James Reilly, said there was no reason why Sligo General should not continue to deliver an excellent service.

He said his party did not want to see the services in Sligo either diminished or undermined.

Labour Party leaderEamon Gilmore said there was a clear and unanswerable case for a ninth centre of excellence to be developed in the north-west.

The leader of Sinn Féin in the Dáil Caoimhghin Ó Caoláin said the protestunderlined the fundamentally flawed nature of the Government’s plan for a very limited number of cancer care centres.