The only specialist cancer hospital in the State is having difficulty meeting the increased demand on it for radiotherapy treatment.
The budget of St Luke's Hospital in Dublin has been cut by €1 million this year. However, the hospital board chairman has expressed confidence that patients will not be affected.
The only radiotherapy treatment centre outside Dublin is at Cork University Hospital.
To date, St Luke's has been coping with the increased pressure on its services through "extensive use of overtime and after-hours patient treatments", according to its annual report, published yesterday. This position, however, is unsustainable, said the hospital's chief executive, Mr Lorcan Birthistle.
St Luke's is seeking funding to install another four radiotherapy treatment machines. Whether it is successful is likely to depend on the recommendations of an expert group set up in May 2000 to review radiotherapy services in the State. The group's report, which still has not been published, will recommend that radiotherapy treatment be sited in Dublin, Cork and Galway only.
This will be a major disappointment to the people of the south-east in particular, where there has been a massive campaign for radiotherapy services for at least two years. The report will say that a minimum critical population and patient throughput is needed to maintain expertise and specialisation, and this is why radiotherapy cannot be based at several hospitals.
As a result, cancer patients will still have to travel long journeys to receive treatment. Mr Birthistle said that St Luke's was acutely aware of the difficulties this posed for many of its patients. In an attempt to ease those, the hospital has, on a pilot basis, introduced a dedicated transport service for patients travelling from the Midland Health Board area.
The chairman of the board at St Luke's, Mr Padraic White, said that the hospital's budget had been cut by 2 per cent this year, but he felt confident that patients would not be affected. "Now we are facing a deficit of €1 million, we will take action, we will make the reductions in overheads; we will do everything possible to avoid any direct effect on the patients," he said.
St Luke's treated 4,827 new cancer patients last year and administered more than 76,000 radiotherapy treatments.
Meanwhile, unions representing staff at Dublin's Mater Hospital met management yesterday to discuss proposed cutbacks. SIPTU's Mr Paul Bell described the meeting as most unsatisfactory and said that his members would not accept job losses and would take industrial action if necessary.
The Irish Medical Organisation said that it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the morale of health-care workers who each day must confront "the chronic ill-health of the health service".