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.