Keane rules out Sligo cancer centre

A CAMPAIGN to retain cancer services at Sligo General Hospital was dealt another blow yesterday when the director of the National Cancer Control Programme ruled out the provision of a satellite centre there.

Prof Tom Keane, who disclosed that he been lobbied by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern on the issue just days before he resigned, said that if an exception was made for Sligo, then it would be sought for other areas and the entire strategy would have to be revisited.

There was a furious reaction to Prof Keane’s comments in the northwest, with members of the Save Sligo Cancer Services Campaign vowing to continue the fight.

Campaigners have called on local Fianna Fáil TDs to “stand with the people who elected them” and support a joint Fine Gael/Labour motion due to be tabled in the Dáil today calling for the retention of units in Sligo and Castlebar as satellite centres. Busloads of protesters are expected to travel to the Dáil for today’s vote.

Sligo County Council suspended standing orders at its monthly meeting yesterday to unanimously pass two emergency motions on the issue.

Members are to seek a meeting with Taoiseach Brian Cowen and Minister for Health Mary Harney while the HSE is also being urged to retain existing surgical and diagnostic services in Sligo and to consider locating a ninth centre of excellence there.

In an interview on Ocean FM in Sligo yesterday, Prof Keane said Sligo General Hospital was not included among the eight centres of excellence for cancer treatment as the area does not have the required critical mass of patients.

He said the former taoiseach had lobbied him about the retention of services in Sligo but that Mr Ahern had accepted that an exception could not be made.

Prof Keane also insisted that if the debate about the cancer strategy was reopened “we would be back where we were two years ago”. He said he had been presented with the strategy and had been given a clear direction to implement it.

Lily McMorrow, a former cancer patient and prominent campaigner, said the issue was too important to give up on now.

She accused Fianna Fáil politicians of letting down the people who had elected them and said it had “added insult to injury” to hold a Fianna Fáil national collection outside churches in the region at the weekend.