A consultant orthopaedic surgeon has accused the Government of favouring the southern half of the country in the provision of cancer services.
Brendan Healy, who is attached to Sligo General Hospital, told a meeting of Sligo County Council that there was no radiotherapy unit north of a line between Dublin and Galway. However, there were seven units on or below it.
He told the meeting that hundreds of cancer patients were forced to make return regular journeys of up to 420 miles for treatment in Dublin from the northwest, including from the most remote corners of Donegal, because there was no radiotherapy service in the region.
"It shouldn't be a matter of where you live in relation to the treatment you get. It should be the same treatment for everybody in the country."
He said what was needed was a satellite unit in Sligo linked to a "mother" unit in Dublin or Galway.
Patients would be monitored by the mother unit, which would probably also prescribe treatment. It would then be administered locally.
Mr Healy rejected Minister for Health Mary Harney's view, which she repeated to an Oireachtas Committee on Health last week, that the population of the northwest does not justify establishing a radiotherapy service there.
He said experience in the private sector indicated a unit would be viable with 300 patients a year - a figure which would be reached when the needs of Sligo, south Donegal, north Mayo, Roscommon and Leitrim were combined. "It would provide a huge improvement in the quality of life of patients."
He said it would reduce the numbers of women opting for total mastectomy rather than lumpectomy and radiotherapy.
It would also be a major benefit to men with prostate cancer as well as to patients in need of palliative radiotherapy to control pain.