Cancer clinic to stop treating new public patients as HSE talks stall

A PRIVATE clinic contracted by the Health Service Executive (HSE) to provide radiotherapy services to public cancer patients in the south-east is to cease taking new referrals from May 1.

Yesterday, a spokesperson for University Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC), which provides the service at the Whitfield Clinic in Waterford, said they “could be accused of reckless trading” if they continued to treat public patients in the absence of a service level agreement with the HSE.

The previous contract between the HSE and UPMC, in place since 2007, expired at the end of last year.

The UPMC spokesman said they had “issues” with the HSE going back to August 2008, centring on late payments and part-payments for services. “These are very serious issues for people running the service. Prof Tom Keane [former cancer tzar] assured us in 2009 that all outstanding issues would be resolved, but it took until December to sort out the payment issues for 2008 and 2009. Payments for January 2010 are still delayed – we only received part payment, and you can’t run a service like that,” he said.

The spokesman said they had offered reduced rates to the HSE on March 2, but received no response and that negotiations to agree a new contract had been ongoing since last October.

Yesterday, the HSE said it was committed to ensuring “that an appropriate, quality-assured radiotherapy service continues to be delivered to public patients in the south-east”.

The HSE said it was also committed to providing radiotherapy at Waterford Regional Hospital from 2014.

The statement said discussions with Waterford Oncology Associates, the legal entity for UPMC, were ongoing and part of those discussions “involves agreeing appropriate fee levels”.

Last year, UPMC treated 775 patients, 590 of whom were public. It offers IMRT, a state-of-the-art service that targets tumours in the head, neck and pancreas and destroys bad cells only.

Fine Gael Senator, Paudie Coffey, said it was his understanding that three deadlines to agree a new contract between the parties had been breached by the HSE.

He called on Health Minister, Mary Harney, to make a statement on radiotherapy services in the south-east.

UPMC said the current crisis will not affect treatment of existing patients.

Any patients or members of the public with concerns should contact 051 337444.