Cancer screening - Champagne on ice until service begins

ANY innovation that reduces the risk posed by cancer is welcome, most especially if it is long overdue.

However, families who lost mothers, wives or sisters because screening services for cervical cancer were not in place when they needed them will temper their welcome for yesterday’s announcement of an improved service with an understandable degree of regret.

Their welcome will also be qualified by the unfortunate reality that promises made about the provision of health services — and school buildings — are no more than words and that the champagne should be kept on ice until the service is fully operational.

Nonetheless, yesterday’s news that the National Cancer Screening Service (NCSS) has selected a US firm to analyse smear tests that provide early warning signs of cervical cancer is welcome. More than 70 women die in Ireland each year because of cervical cancer, a cancer that is entirely preventable if the early signs are treated. The NCSS believes mortality rates may be cut by up to 80% once the programme is in place. Screening will be free to women aged between 25 and 60. Women between 25 and 44 will be tested every three years, older women every five years.

Delays in smear testing have been a serious problem. Less than two years ago women had to wait six months for results from Cork University Hospital. In 2006, the backlog stood at 10,938 smears. Obviously that could not continue and those responsible for reaching yesterday’s modest milestone are to be encouraged but congratulations must wait until the service is saving lives.

There are just too many deficiencies in our health service. Deficiencies that provoked calls for Health Minister Mary Harney’s exclusion from the Cabinet earlier this week.

One of the areas where these deficiencies are seen at their worst is in the area of stroke treatment. About 10,000 people go to hospital every year after a stroke. Nearly two decades ago medicine learned how to deal with strokes. By getting people quickly into specialist units, giving them the correct scans and the right clot-busting drugs, their chances of survival could be greatly improved. Living a full and normal life remained an option for stroke victims.

Governments in more progressive countries understood the significance of these developments. They made the technologies available because it was the right thing to do and because it was cheaper to treat stroke victims properly than it is to look after someone impaired by a stroke. Eight years ago the Irish Heart Foundation (IHF) made recommendations on bringing Ireland up to speed with international best practice on stroke treatment. None of their recommendations have been implemented. Irish hospitals should have at least 365 dedicated stroke beds; we have 12. More than 90% of British hospitals have a stroke unit; only one of 37 Irish hospitals has one.

This is the kind of scandal that remains a real cause for anger and fuels cynicism. Taoiseach Brian Cowen has spoken convincingly of his commitment to reform. He is not the first to sing that song and consequently will find a public less patient that he might wish but our health system must be confronted and improved.

Let us all hope his leadership is the catalyst needed to end all the illnesses and diminished quality of life endured in this country because of inefficiency and neglect in our health services.