Cancer treatment - Standard of service intolerable

It is an intolerable outrage that cancer patients in this country are being asked to wait for treatment for twice as long as recommended because of an acute shortage of radiotherapists.

This would be a blistering indictment of any government but words are not adequate to express the opprobrium that should be heaped on a government that actually campaigned on a promise to provide a superior health service. What we have is grossly inadequate.

Patients who are supposed to receive treatment within a month to six weeks have to wait between two and three months. There are only eight radiotherapy oncologists working in the State compared to 12 in Belfast alone. What does this say about our much-vaunted independence?