Cancer patients in the west of Ireland face another three years' wait for radiotherapy treatment in the region even though the new unit at University College Hospital in Galway will be ready by the end of the summer.
A contract with Siemens to provide specialised equipment for the unit - the west's first radiotherapy treatment centre - may also have to be renegotiated at a potentially higher cost to the Western Health Board, due to the Government's continued refusal to approve recruitment of appropriate staff. The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland's licence for the equipment requires that a senior radiation physicist and other staff be appointed to carry out its commissioning, for health and safety reasons.
The new radiotherapy and cardiac surgery facilities are central to the €80 million second phase of development at University College Hospital, Galway (UCHG). The cardiac surgery and radiotherapy units were included in the hospital's second phase of construction after years of lobbying for equality of health treatment on the west coast.
The Western Health Board submitted its staffing requirements for both to the Department of Health in July 2001, to ensure that the appropriate personnel were in place by the target completion date of July of this year. The staff required for radiotherapy include three radiation oncologists, a senior radiation physicist and radiographers. The health board has also sought approval to recruit three cardiac surgeons and support staff for the cardiac surgery unit, which will expand the existing very limited range of cardiac services to include bypass operations and valve-replacement work.
However, to date its requests have been ignored by the Department, and the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, told TG4 last week that he would not consider staffing of the radiotherapy unit before construction was complete. This is in spite of the fact that the health board and its consultants have repeatedly stated that it will take 18 months to two years to recruit specialist staff - mainly due to the byzantine appointment system involving Department of Finance, the Department of Health, the health board, Comhairle na nOspidéal and the Government's Office of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners.
It will then take a minimum of nine months to commission the equipment for the radiotherapy unit. A spokeswoman for the Minister told The Irish Times that the Department was "actively considering the staffing proposals".
Galway has been designated as one of three locations for radiotherapy service in a report by an expert group, chaired by Prof Donal Hollywood, which is due to be published shortly by the Minister. Some 50 per cent of patients diagnosed with cancer are recommended for radiotherapy, yet only 22 per cent of those in the west can avail of the treatment, compared to 47 per cent in the east, according to Dr Oliver McAnena, regional director of cancer services with the WHB.
This is a direct reflection of access difficulties, according to Dr Maccon Keane, consultant oncologist at UCHG.
Dr Keane says that he comes across cases every week where people requiring radiotherapy refuse to travel to Dublin because of their vulnerable condition. "Last week's funding announcement by the National Roads Authority is further proof of the neglect of the west," he says. "In allocating more resources for infrastructure to the south and east, it is contributing to this spiral of decline."
Dr Jerry Cowley, Mayo GP and Independent TD, has been an outspoken critic of the lack of Government commitment to health services in the region and has described the system as one of "health apartheid".
"How can you blame people with cancer for refusing to endure the added trauma of travelling to Dublin?" he says. "It is a scandal that they will now have to wait so much longer when a new unit will be lying idle. Also, there is a crying need for a neurosurgery unit at UCHG to deal with emergency patients who are currently transported, at high risk, to Beaumont in Dublin." Rheumatology, urology and orthopaedics were also being neglected in Mayo, he said, while children were suffering because of the lack of a proper ear, nose and throat service.
"Lack of planning is a major part of the problem, and I am in favour of a consultant-led health service, but the Minister has to be prepared to employ those consultants," Dr Cowley said. "This Government seems to be determined to let the public health service run down and force people into a private option which many cannot afford."
Dr Cowley said that the extension of the BreastCheck screening programme last week to three south-eastern counties only was "disgraceful", when such screening could cut mortality by 20 per cent.