Barry Roche,Southern Correspondent, examines the row which has erupted again over public cancer patients having to travel miles, despite a new clinic in Waterford
The Health Service Executive (HSE) and the private €40 million Whitfield Clinic in Waterford should resolve their differences as a matter of urgency so that public patients with cancer can receive radiotherapy at the clinic immediately, a campaign group in the southeast has urged.
According to Dick Roche, chairman of the Southeast Radiotherapy Campaign Committee, priority treatment should be given at Whitfield to those with the most advanced and severe forms of cancer irrespective of whether they are private or public patients.
"Priority should be given on the basis of how ill someone is, not on how much money they have," says Roche, whose group has been campaigning for radiotherapy services for people from Waterford, Wexford, Kilkenny, Carlow and South Tipperary since 1998.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Whitfield Clinic opened last month with one linear accelerator and can currently treat only private patients, as under Department of Health expert group guidelines, all centres treating public patients must have two linear accelerators and provide 24- hour consultant oncologist cover.
Linear accelerators are specialist pieces of radiotherapy equipment which are used to deliver a uniform dose of high energy X-ray to shrink and destroy a tumour or cancerous cells while sparing the surrounding normal tissue.
Roche told The Irish Times that while his organisation is committed to the provision of public cancer treatment for patients in the southeast, public patients should be treated at Whitfield on an interim basis until a public facility becomes available at Waterford Regional Hospital.
Roche says Minister for Health Mary Harney gave a commitment to the campaign group in August 2005 that a clinic, with two linear accelerators to provide radiotherapy, would be built in the grounds of Waterford Hospital under a public private partnership by 2008.
But he cautions that even if the Whitfield Clinic treats both public and private patients and provides treatment for some 800 patients a year, it still won't meet the needs of the southeast.
Annually some 1,800 patients from the southeast are forced to go to Dublin or Cork for radiotherapy treatment.
"Even with public patients being treated at Whitfield, over 50 per cent of patients from the southeast are still going to have to travel so we very much need the public private partnership operation to come on stream at Waterford Regional Hospital and provide treatment for another 800 patients."
Roche admits that even with four linear accelerators operating at Whitfield and Waterford Regional Hospital, there will still not be enough capacity in Waterford.
However, he says that some of those 200 who can't be treated locally, would have to travel anyway because of their type of cancer.
"This really is a life and death situation - we're meeting young single mothers with breast cancer who can't travel to Cork or Dublin for six weeks to get radiotherapy treatment and are opting instead for more aggressive surgery and end up losing their lives."
The Whitfield Clinic was developed by Euro Care International, a health infrastructure company set up by Carlow couple Dr Jim and Mary Madden while its radiotherapy facility is provided by American company, UPMC.
Tom Finn, assistant national director of the National Hospitals Office of the HSE, says the reason that UPMC Whitfield Clinic has not been approved to date by the HSE to treat public patients is because it has yet to comply with all Department of Health guidelines
There are 13 guidelines set out by an expert group of radiation oncologists and public health specialists but he is confident that Whitfield will achieve compliance on the remaining two - a second linear accelerator and 24-hour oncologist cover - by January.
"These are Department of Health guidelines and every clinic treating public patients must be compliant with all of them before we can send patients for treatment there.
"Whitfield is a first class centre and UPMC is well used to working with tight regulations in the US," he says.
"We understand the second linear accelerator is being commissioned and will be up and running by January while we also expect there will be clarification on the issue of 24-hour cover so we're confident Whitfield will be compliant with the guidelines very shortly," he says.
Finn stresses that the guidelines are designed to ensure proper treatment for patients and the HSE will welcome being able to treat patients from the southeast in Waterford and spare them having to travel to Cork or Dublin for treatments that may last only five minutes.
Michael Costelloe, managing director of UPMC Cancer Centres International, says it remains committed to treating all patients from the southeast requiring radiotherapy.
"Our second linear accelerator will be ready for use at the start of 2007 while the first cancer patient ever to receive radiotherapy in Waterford was treated at Whitfield last week.
"We look forward to the day when access to this vital treatment is not determined by the lottery of insurance status," he says.
Meanwhile, Roche stresses the matter should be treated with great urgency.
"This really does need to be resolved immediately.
"We don't want a situation in Whitfield where there are two linear accelerators and no public patients being treated - that would be a terrible waste."