Discussions have taken place between the newly-opened Galway Clinic and the Western Health Board which could see public patients on waiting lists for radiotherapy being treated at the private hospital in Doughuisce on the city outskirts.
Radiotherapy will be available for the first time in Galway in just over a week, putting an end to the necessity for long and harrowing journeys to Dublin hospitals by cancer patients from the west.
However, full radiotherapy treatment at University College Hospital Galway will not be available until early 2005. Senior management at the clinic and the health board have had a number of meetings during which consideration was given to how the clinic's radiotherapy facilities could be availed of by public patients.
The medical director at the Galway Clinic, Dr Olwyn McWeeney, confirmed that the first patients would receive radiotherapy treatment in Galway on September 6th.
She said it would "mean an end for many families having to endure long and painful journeys to Dublin for treatment".
Dr Maeve Pomeroy is heading up the team which includes medical physicists and radiology therapists. The Galway Clinic also has plans to provide a second linear accelerator machine by Christmas or early in the new year.
Dr McWeeney said the clinic was very eager to have the channels of communication open with the health board. "Discussions have taken place with the WHB in an effort to establish a partnership and collaboration with the public sector with the view to offering treatment to public patients."
The new private hospital, founded by Mr James Sheehan of the Blackrock Clinic, has been open since the end of June and has already treated nearly 300 patients. Dr McWeeney said the clinic had already treated a considerable number of patients through the National Treatment Purchase Fund and saw no reason why those waiting 12 weeks or more for radiotherapy could not be treated at the private Doughuisce facility.
She was adamant that the Galway Clinic was not an exclusive facility and that it welcomed anyone who required radiotherapy.
"We would be delighted to establish formal linkages with the public health sector," she said. "We should be co-operating and helping each other." She added that the private hospital wished the Western Health Board well in its radiotherapy unit becoming operational early next year.
Meanwhile, the health board has confirmed that the radiotherapy department at UCHG is still in the commissioning phase and the expected first treatment delivery is on course for early 2005. It is estimated that the department will deliver treatment to 2,000 new cancer patients each year with 20,000 out-patient visits each year.
The Minister for Health has also asked the WHB to prepare a plan to facilitate the expansion from three to six radiotherapy machines. A project team is working on this.