Regional units must be expedited

CAMPAIGNERS for cancer treatment services in the South-East and Mid-West regions will derive little solace from the long-delayed report on radiotherapy facilities.

Rather than a network of local units, the Government plans to create four centres of excellence, two in Dublin and one each in Cork and Galway. While the establishment of a first-rate national service is to be welcomed, the policy will bitterly disappoint many cancer patients who experience huge difficulties accessing basic treatment.

People in the South-East will find the expert report perplexing because the highest incidence of breast cancer occurs in that region. Deprived of local services, they must travel by ambulance to Cork or Dublin. They spend long hours on the road despite international recommendations that the maximum travel time for patients be reduced to two hours a day.