Report delays ‘fail’ cancer patients

LABOUR last night accused ministers of failing cancer patients by allowing probes into misdiagnosis scandals to get bogged down in delays.

The party’s health spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan warned inquiries were being used as a way of deflecting criticism, not finding out what went wrong.

She cited a report into the circumstances surrounding the misdiagnosis in the case of Rebecca O’Malley, which was to be published last month.

Ms O’Sullivan questions why a review at University College Hospital Galway after another misdiagnosis case, where a woman was wrongly given a breast cancer all-clear twice, is not complete.

“Whenever there is a crisis in our health services, particularly in our cancer services, it seems to be the culture within the Department of Health and the HSE that once a report has been commissioned, the problem has been solved.

“A report can only ever be the beginning of the process of resolving a crisis such as we saw in Portlaoise, and should never be the end,” she stated.

It is too often these reports commissioned “with great fanfare” are forgotten, she said.

“I am calling on Health Minister Harney to look for the early publication of these reports so that the necessary remedial action can be taken, with the urgency that is required, so that the cancer patients can get the services that they require, and so that public confidence can be restored in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.”

The Health Minister’s spokesman was unavailable for comment.