Bureaucracy smokescreen costing lives

SCIENTISTS do not know what actually causes cancer, nor have they yet found an actual cure, but they have long known that early detection provides the best hope of survival for women with breast cancer, which is the second most prevalent form of the disease among women.

Screening is the most effective method of early detection, but politicians and bureaucrats persist in playing a deadly waiting game with women and their families in the south and west of Ireland.

The BreastCheck programme was announced and introduced in Dublin before the turn of the century. It was supposed to be the start of a roll-out programme for the whole country.

The programme had already proven very successful in Northern Ireland, where there has been a drop of 20% in breast cancer deaths. The indications have been equally positive in Dublin and the east of Ireland as the programme expanded.

Statistics have shown that a woman's risk of developing breast cancer doubles if a first degree relative (mother, sister or daughter) has developed the disease. The risks more than triple if more than one relative has been affected.

Hence it is important for such susceptible people to have regular check-ups, but in the south and west people may have to wait for up to 18 months for a test.

Such people are victims of the callous indifference of bureaucrats and politicians.

Attempts have been made to justify the delay in rolling out the service nationally on the grounds that BreastCheck wished to have the system functioning to the optimum in each area before expanding.

The service announced that it hoped to be able to offer hospital admission to 90% of cases detected within three weeks, for instance, but it was only able to achieve this in 86.5% of cases.

To try to justify the denial of this service to women in the south and west of Ireland on the grounds of trying to perfect it elsewhere is an insult to people's intelligence. It also contravenes the real republican principles on which our system of government is founded.

As Health Minister in March 2003, Micheál Martin announced the expansion of the BreastCheck programme nationally, but he was in the process of preparing to move to a new ministerial role before his department could even get approval to fund the announced programme.

This was reputedly a result of the usual bureaucratic rigmarole in getting financial approval from the Department of Finance. Now the whole thing is being delayed by the need to put it out to tender.

Sixty-five women will die this year because of the failure to implement the programme. Since it was first announced and selectively introduced, 325 women have died needlessly, with all the suffering they and their families had to endure.

The delay really has little to do with finance: it is about commitment.

While ministers seem to have no difficulty in securing funds even exorbitant sums for their own spin-doctors, they could not find the money for the medical staff to fund the BreastCheck service that might save many lives in the south and west of Ireland.