PLANS to earmark Galway's University College Hospital as one of three major regional cancer centres have raised a hollow laugh among surgeons at the hospital, who are sick and tired of the intolerable conditions there.
The plans were announced in a blaze of publicity recently by the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan. They follow the announcement earlier in the year of a £25 million development plan at UCHG.
The cancer strategy includes a national cancer forum, the appointment of additional consultant oncologists, screening programmes for breast cancer and new guidelines on the safe administration of chemotherapy.
The development plan for UCHG includes a promise of 50 new beds in four separate units, two additional X ray rooms, three operating theatres, an extension to the accident and emergency department and other improvements.
"There can be no basis for any suggestion that the west has got less than its fair share of health funding from this Government," the Minister said at the time. "When all the work of redevelopment and modernisation is completed, we will have spent over £25 million."
It all sounds wonderful for one of the most neglected hospitals in the State, until you examine the fine print and discover there is no commitment to provide a radiotherapy facility for the cancer centre, and no timetable for implementation of the plan.
Mr Noonan has told the Dail the plan will be "phased in over a number of years".
Setting up a cancer treatment centre without radiotherapy is a bit like setting up a television station without cameras, or giving boatless fishermen grants to buy nets. It does not make sense.
Worse, it comes amid confirmation of a deepening crisis at UCHG and at Merlin Park, Galway's other health board hospital. The Western Health Board was told recently that the official waiting list at the two hospitals had reached 18,000.
In some cases, people are being forced to wait for up to seven years before they are assessed for treatment.
More than 2,000 people are waiting for in patient surgical treatment in University College Hospital, Galway, in departments such as cardiology (80); ear, nose and throat (351); urology (390); and general surgery (207). Almost 10,000 are waiting for outpatient services, including more than 2,000 for vascular surgery and 1,764 for general surgery.
At Merlin Park, the waiting list for in patient orthopaedic treatment stands at 772. The overall waiting list at the hospital is more than 5,000.
The message is clear: do not get sick in Galway, unless you can afford to go private. But the problems do not end there.
Last spring, junior doctors at UCHG's outpatients department went on strike in protest at what they called "intolerable working conditions" and "unacceptable delays for treatment in casualty.
At the time, the Fianna Fail health spokeswoman, Mrs Ma ire Geoghegan Quinn, claimed she had seen a confidential report which said that on one occasion 11 people aged over 70 were left on trolleys overnight in the accident and emergency department, simply because there was no room for them elsewhere.
Little has changed since then. At the moment, up to 40 scheduled operations a week are being cancelled at the hospital, because it has overspent its annual budget. Senior consultants have been told to cut back on theatre time in order to save money.
They, and all other staff at the hospital, have also been given strict instructions not to talk to the press.
A long awaited interim development plan for the hospital - the first phase of the £25 million plan - is due to finally get off the ground when contracts are signed in a week or two.
But it will only add to the chaos, according to one surgeon at the hospital. He describes the £8 million plan as "a patch up job which will cause unbelievable disruption" and says morale among staff is at an all time low.
Disruption caused by construction work during the implementation of the interim plan will mean patients will have to be wheeled down the main thoroughfare of the hospital on their way to and from theatre.
He says it is hardly a dignified prospect for people who are suffering from serious illnesses.
When he started at the hospital a few years ago, he came with a determination to clear his waiting list. "I found that I would write a request for an X ray, and then I would be told the waiting list for an X ray was six to eight months. You become rather disillusioned after a while."
The budget cutbacks, which started to bite in the summer, have added to the surgeons' woes, he says.
"We were told we were working too hard and spending too much money. But how on earth can we fix the hips if they won't let us?"
The Western Health Board's CEO, Mr Eamonn Hannan, has refused to allow orthopaedic surgeons to come before the health board and explain the reasons for the long waiting lists, on the grounds that it is a management function to explain the delays. He told The Irish Times that it had never been the practice to bring individual consultants before the board.
He declined to comment on the claims that the interim development plan for the hospital will cause disruption, or on the other concerns raised by the surgeon. "I'm not going to comment unless you name him.
But he confirmed that operations were being cancelled because of budgetary cutbacks, some at short notice. Already this year, more surgical work has been carried out in the two Galway hospitals than was anticipated in the budget plans.
He says this was partly because of the influx of tourists during the summer, which created extra demands for services. "We have had to postpone operations, as accident and emergency has to take precedence."
Mr Hannan points out that some recent developments will help to relieve some of the pressure on waiting lists. These include the appointment of a new orthopaedic surgeon, who started working in Merlin Park in October.
The board has also won approval for a new orthopaedic department in Castlebar.
He says he is "delighted" at the proposed designation of the hospital as a major cancer centre, and he is confident the resources will be provided. "There is no point in announcing it if they don't provide the resources," he says.
No point, unless you want to make political capital out of it. But then, as Fianna Fail Senator Frank Fahey says, "every political party can take its share of the blame for not giving Galway the priority it deserves in health care.
"Now we're getting a Mickey Mouse interim plan which is totally inadequate. It's fire brigade action, and in the meantime they are putting off operations day after day."