Sanity must prevail over Limerick unit

IT is an outrage that the Department of Health has effectively been frustrating a proposal to help the most vulnerable people in society — people who are ill with cancer.

The department has procrastinated over an offer by a private group to fund a radiotherapy service in Limerick.

All governments have to make hard, unpalatable decisions, and this Government concluded, on the basis of a commissioned report, that radiotherapy services should be located in Dublin, Cork and Galway. Limiting the service to three locations may have been dictated by the availability of public finances, but it is an affront to common sense and human dignity that the department should behave as if that decision would preclude others from setting up units elsewhere.

A private group took the initiative to raise funds so that a radiotherapy unit could be set up at Limerick Regional Hospital without cost to the State. By imaginative fundraising, and the generous help of people like JP McManus and golfer Tiger Woods, the group raised 6 million for the project.

The Mid-Western Hospitals Trust proposed to run the service in conjunction with the Mater Private Hospital, which said that it would staff the unit and have the service in place within a couple of years. This would complement existing oncology services at the Regional Hospital.

The trust insists that the steps would be taken immediately to put the service in place, if the Department of Health provided the necessary permission. The service would then be made available to both public and private patients at no cost to the taxpayer.

The Department of Health contends that it did not actually block the decision. It has simply not yet decided to approve or disapprove, and it will not make a final determination until next week. For the present, that has the same impact as rejecting the offer.

When it comes to cancer treatment, time is of the essence, and bureaucratic procrastination is intolerable. The proposal has the backing of the Mid-Western Health Board, because, at the moment, patients must make the arduous journey either to St Luke’s in Dublin or to Cork University Hospital for radiotherapy. Most patients from the Mid-West area choose Dublin, but then they have to wait for up to five months for the treatment.

It is a disgrace that people should have to travel so far, and this is compounded by having to wait not just hours, or days, but weeks and even months. Radiotherapy is very debilitating and, in the circumstances, as many as 20% of those who need the treatment refuse to undertake the extensive travel necessary in getting to Dublin or Cork. That may be their decision, but it must have a profound impact on their families, not to mention their own prospects.

Should the Department of Health block the proposal next week, it will be an indictment of our system of government and a very poor reflection on the self-respecting people that the government purports to represent.

If the minister cannot ensure that sanity prevails, we can only conclude that his department is a very sick joke.