Forget a stadium, what about cancer services?

OUR outgoing Taoiseach has declared the failure to build a national stadium as his biggest regret after his long tenure in office. “The country needed it and required it,” he said (April 7).

With the expected doubling of Ireland’s cancer statistics, might I suggest that this country’s most urgent need is the provision of resources to the comprehensive cancer centres, which Bertie Ahern’s Government has argued will provide best outcomes.

One of these centres, Waterford Regional Hospital, the cancer centre for the southeast, has no infrastructure for the provision of cancer care, no designated cancer ward, no palliative care beds and none of the basic facilities for patients to receive treatment in a proper environment.

Mr Ahern’s Government and the HSE, having previously promised to fast-track the cancer unit, have now withdrawn their timeframe. The chaos that will ensue, for patients across the region will be paid for in the trauma to, and the loss of, cancer patients’ lives.

A real regret!

Jane Bailey

Rathmoylan

Dunmore East

Co Waterford