Cancer patient's surgery 'was cancelled due to overcrowding'

The Oireachtas health committee will hear that, while numbers surviving cancer in Ireland are rising, they are 'rising faster and further in other countries'. Stock picture
A cancer patient whose surgery was cancelled due to hospital overcrowding three months ago is still waiting for the operation to take place and is just one example of delays in care, the Oireachtas health committee will hear on Wednesday.
Another patient was told of a year’s wait for a biopsy to potentially identify cancer, the Irish Cancer Society will warn.
These are stories shared with its staff on the support line and in Daffodil support centres.
Irish Cancer Society advocacy and communications director Steve Dempsey will describe how another patient is still waiting to start radiotherapy some 18 weeks after surgery.
In a shocking sign of the pressures on the system, a Ukrainian person living here was unable to get treatment for newly-identified signs of bowel cancer. This person had to return to Ukraine where a colonoscopy confirmed cancer and surgery was performed.
Mr Dempsey is expected to say that, while numbers surviving cancer in Ireland are rising, this is “rising faster and further in other countries” including in the EU. He will warn:
He will share data showing that more than 4,100 people were waiting more than the recommended 28 days for an urgent colonoscopy between January and July this year.
Some 5,800 women were not seen within the recommended 10 working days at urgent symptomatic breast disease clinics between January and July this year. He will say:
He will describe this as a failing of “successive Governments which have failed to adequately fund the national cancer strategy.” He will acknowledge this is complex to measure as it includes staffing and the cost of new medicines.
However, he is expected to say: “the strategy only received incremental funding in fewer than half of the last nine budgets.”
The society has been told this year the funding is being given directly to the new HSE health regions “via letters of determination outside of the budget”.
He said that this means: “Weeks after the budget, we have no notion yet of funding for cancer services next year. We may never get that detail.”
He warned there is a real concern the move to the regions could mean good work done in centralising care will be undermined.
Mr Dempsey is also expected to focus on success stories including a jump to 65% of patients surviving five years after diagnosis by 2018, up from 44% in the late 1990s.