Campaign to highlight bowel cancer

WITH over 900 people dying of bowel cancer in Ireland every year, and over half of patients presenting with the disease at a late stage, the Irish Cancer Society has nominated April as Ireland’s first Bowel Cancer Awareness Month.

The campaign, that gets under way this week, aims to both raise awareness of the cancer’s signs and symptoms as well as highlighting the benefit of a bowel cancer screening programme to detect the disease that is the second most common cause of cancer death in Ireland, after lung cancer.

At the heart of the campaign will be a National Cancer Helpline staffed by specialist nurses people can ring (1800 200 700), email ([e-mail]) or call into the Irish Cancer Society’s offices in Dublin to discuss their concerns.

The society’s head of advocacy and communication, Kathleen O’Meara, said the society also wants to see the roll-out of a free national bowel cancer screening programme for people over 50 years.

“Screening saves lives and there is evidence to show that a bowel cancer screening programme would start to save lives immediately,” she said.

Health Minister Mary Harney recently told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children that no funding has yet been allocated to a national colorectal screening programme.

Ms Harney said the Nation Cancer Screening Service (NCSS) has asked the Health information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to conduct a health technology assessment on a colorectal screening programme, which was due to be presented to her soon. She would be in a position to consider the introduction of a colorectal screening programme and the resources needed when she received the assessment.