Radiotherapy unit - Patients get lifeline from volunteers

TIGER WOODS may grab the headlines but the story behind Limerick’s €8 million radiotherapy unit is a remarkable case of how voluntary activists are giving cancer patients a lifeline despite getting no aid from the State.

What is most astonishing is that nobody will be refused admission to the unit once it is in operation next year. It is a saga that portrays a more positive face of Limerick than we normally see.

The unit’s open-door policy is in stark contrast with the two-tier service in the rest of Ireland, where private patients who can afford to pay are fast-tracked for radiotherapy while public patients are doomed to queue interminably for this lifesaving treatment.

An equally important feature of the ambitious healthcare project being built in the grounds of the Mid-Western Regional Hospital is its place in the community. The significance of its location is all the greater because the Government has accepted the conclusion of the national oncology report which recommends that cancer treatment be centred in the existing units at Dublin, Cork and Galway. People from other areas will be treated in those centres.

At present, more than half of the 1,500 patients diagnosed with cancer each year in the mid-west require radiotherapy treatment. But there is only a 50% uptake of treatment, because patients have to travel to Cork or Dublin.

After next year, however, patients from the mid-west region will no longer have to endure this long, painful and costly experience, which invariably involves several overnight stays for debilitating treatment sessions lasting about three minutes a day.

The voluntary input to the new project is an extraordinary tale. Angered by the Department of Health’s decision to rule out a radiotherapy unit in Limerick, local businessmen involved in the Mid-West Hospital Development Trust, a registered charity, decided to go it alone with voluntary money and the backing of the Mater Private Hospital, which agreed to staff and run the unit.

When Tiger Woods played in the JP McManus Golf Classic at Limerick Golf club in 2000, he helped raise €2m for the unit, which will annually treat 500 public and private patients and cost more than €1.6m a year to run.

Overall, thanks to the unstinting generosity of JP McManus and the Friends of the Trust, more than €10m has been raised for the purchase of important hospital equipment, including a CT scanner; a mammography machine; an MRI suite and a hydrotherapy pool. It would be outrageous if VAT is charged on this equipment.

When Junior Minister Tim O’Malley turned the sod yesterday, the last piece of the jigsaw fell into place.

It behoves Health Minister Mary Harney to display greater generosity in the future than we have seen from the Government to date.

There is an irresistible argument for the State to take on responsibility for funding public patients being treated in the facility. Ms Harney’s most important role will be to ensure ready treatment for people who cannot afford to pay.