Cancer error hospital offers HSE machine

BARRINGTONS Hospital’s in Limerick, which has ceased treating cancer patients, yesterday offered the use of a state-of-the-art mammogram machine to the HSE for free.

BreastCheck, the national breast cancer screening programme, has yet to be rolled out in the mid-west.

Women in the region have to travel to private medical facilities in Cork or Galway for check-up mammograms.

The Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, which has a cancer centre of excellence unit, will only approve women for mammograms when they present with cancer symptoms.

Cancer treatment at Barringtons ended some months ago after an independent inquiry was called for by Health Minister Mary Harney after a women treated in the private hospital was incorrectly given the all-clear.

Barringtons said it does not intend to resume cancer treatment irrespective of the outcome of the inquiry and have offered the use of its €500,000 mammogram machine to the HSE without charge.

A spokesman for the HSE Mid-West said it will examine the offer.

A spokeswoman for BreastCheck said yesterday it still does not have a start-up date for the service in the mid-west.

The HSE Mid-West said women with symptoms such as a lump in the breast will get a full examination including a mammogram at the Mid-Western Regional Hospital.

They are also triaged once a week by a team of surgeons there.

The spokesman said there was no screening service available for women who are well but who may have an anxiety about breast cancer.

He said if a GP refers a woman because of the emergence of a cancer problem in a family, that person will be seen at the hospital.

“BreastCheck has not been introduced to the mid-west and that is the big problem as women who are well, and who want a mammogram because they are anxious have been putting increasing pressure on the symptomatic service,” he said.

Such cases were now being told they will have to go elsewhere. This is to ensure that women with symptoms have quicker access to imaging.

“The woman with no symptoms, but who has an awful history in the family and is referred by a GP, will not be turned away,” the spokesman added.