Healthcare crisis - Cancer care services in chronic state

The one real certainty in life is ultimate death, so everyone should be concerned - even if only for their own sake - about the way dying people are treated.

When it comes to cancer, the ordeal of watching a loved one waste away in pain can be almost as painful for members of the victim’s family as it is for the cancer patient.

Dr Seamus O’Reilly, the consultant oncologist for the public health service in Counties Cork and Kerry, has written a letter of complaint to Tánaiste Mary Harney and Health Service Executive chief executive Brendan Drumm, highlighting the chronic state of cancer services in the south.