'Disgraceful' that medical professionals had to petition Government for proper cancer funding

Party to bring a private members’ motion in the Dáil calling for the immediate funding of the National Cancer Strategy

Sinn Féin spokesperson on health David Cullinane: 'When you have a letter of the magnitude that we saw today... clearly citing failure of investment and the consequences for patient safety and patient care, I think it is very alarming.' Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins 

Sinn Féin has described as “disgraceful” the fact medical professionals have had to petition the Taoiseach publicly for the proper funding of cancer services, and said the letter itself was “very alarming”.

The party will on Tuesday night bring a private members’ motion in the Dáil calling for the immediate funding of the National Cancer Strategy, the implementation of which has been seriously called into doubt by the Irish Cancer Society.

On Tuesday morning, 21 doctors and researchers, including Professor John Kennedy, who chaired the implementation group for the current National Cancer Strategy in 2017, wrote to Taoiseach Simon Harris and said cancer survival rates would decline unless the strategy was not properly funded.

Responding to that letter, Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson David Cullinane took aim specifically at the Taoiseach, noting in three of the years in which the national cancer strategy was underfunded since 2017, Mr Harris had been the minister for health.

He added Mr Harris “is partly responsible for this in terms of when he was minister for health, but also when he was minister for higher education, because part of the problem is we can’t hire the radiation therapists and radiologists because we don’t train enough of them, and that’s on him”.

'Disgraceful'

“It’s disgraceful, to be honest, that it took the Irish Cancer Society and campaigners to come forward and then to have medical professionals, who don’t want to be sending letters to the Taoiseach, but who have been forced to do so due to the lack of capacity and the lack of funding”.

“When you have a letter of the magnitude that we saw today... clearly citing failure of investment and the consequences for patient safety and patient care, I think it is very alarming,” Mr Cullinane said.

Sinn Fein’s motion, which will be debated on Tuesday evening, calls for the 2024 health budget to be revised to fund the cancer strategy, which the Irish Cancer Society recently said was the first of those strategies which was likely not to deliver on its remit due to inadequate financing.

Last October, the HSE requested €20m in additional funding from the Government for cancer services, none of which was received in a year in which the health budget is broadly seen to have been underfunded to the tune of €1bn.

Asked whether or not the provision of such additional funding would be a red line issue for Sinn Féin in Government, Mr Cullinane said his party would “properly fund the National Cancer Strategy, deliver 3,000 hospital and community beds and invest in local health services”.

“We need a change in direction,” he said.

Abortion

Separately, Mr Cullinane said there needed to be “flexibility” in terms of the 28-day limitation placed on doctors diagnosing fatal foetal abnormalities in unborn children, that being the timeframe by which such babies are expected to die within from their condition.

An RTÉ Prime Time Investigates programme broadcast on Monday night had detailed the harrowing stories of Irish women who had been forced to travel to the UK for an abortion in such cases due to the restrictive nature of Ireland’s legislation surrounding such pregnancies, which require that two doctors agree on a diagnosis regarding a foetus’s viability.

“I think the key issues is the 28 days. I can understand where a healthcare professional is finding it difficult to be precise and the impact that has on some women,” he said, adding Ireland’s three-day wait before an abortion could be carried out “has to go”.

He added he was “open” to the 12-week-limit on abortion in Ireland being extended, but said any change in the legislation regarding same would require “further clarification and further discussion because what we don’t want is unintended consequences”.