CT scanner must be made available, says TD

A FINE Gael TD has urged the HSE to ensure a vital cancer scanner mothballed for three years is made available to patients before the technology is out of date.

Speaking after the Irish Examiner revealed that Cork University Hospital’s (CUH) PET/CT scanner was still unavailable due to staff shortages, and despite repeated government promises, Cork East TD David Stanton said the delay must be addressed.

Mr Stanton, who chairs the Oireachtas justice committee, said it had been three years since the €3.8 million equipment was purchased.

It is also four years since the €6.85m treatment and diagnostic facility where the equipment is based was given planning permission, and four-and-a-half years since the project was announced.

However, despite the intervening period seeing numerous promises by the previous and current governments to bring the public service online, none of the four positions needed for this have been filled.

As a result, the HSE has announced a costly tender process for private recruitment firms to find a clinical specialist radiographer, two senior radiographers and a principal physicist to take up the roles.

“It will be an awful disaster if this does not get up and running,” said Mr Stanton, who noted that the PET/CT scanner was used to take a detailed 3D image of cancerous growths, neurological issues and heart problems, significantly improving the accuracy of doctors treatment prognoses.

“My whole approach is to keep this in the public agenda because the HSE has so many other things going on it would be quite easy for this to fall away, and that might suit some people.

“My main concern is to get the machinery in place so patients don’t have to travel from Munster to other parts of Dublin for this, or to go to private hospitals to access this treatment.

“It is costing some people a lot to go to private hospitals for this,” said Mr Stanton, who is to raise the issue in a Dáil parliamentary question today.

The CUH PET/CT scanner is one of just two in Ireland’s public hospital system, with the other based in St James’s Hospital in Dublin. A number of private facilities across the country also have the scanners.

As a result, about 200 Munster-based cancer patients must travel to Dublin for scans every year.

* [e-mail]